ohtani's jacket

Just get rid of them both and replace them with a lucha or WoS worker like I would do.

The three matches that were used to nominate him are excellent bouts so he at least has that going for him.

Sure, demonstrating all that charisma, expressiveness, personality in the ring, aura and intangibles as he whoos to complete silence. So Dory was one of the biggest gaijin stars of all time because he toured there for 15 years+, and we're actually pretending that Flair's first WWF run was a success now? You're right that Crockett did good business on the East Coast after McMahon sold the TBS time slots to him, so I'll retract my comment that Flair's act didn't play well to that market. I know people who were disappointed when he showed up in the WWF in '91, particularly Flair fans who'd constantly told their Eastern brethren how good Flair was. You can put that down to weak booking I suppose.

It's obvious to all in sundry that Flair had more innate charisma than Backlund or Dory, but that didn't wash with Japanese fans or folks on the East Coast, and I don't think it's a matter of booking. I don't think Flair knew how to act for either market.

But then Dory was more over in Japan than Flair ever was, and Backlund was more over in the Nortth East. How do you explain that?

The point is whst is it based on? Crowd reaction?

I don't know. It's hard to go back on a cellphone and check everybody. But Dory seems a 6/10 to me. Backlund a 7 and Misawa an 8 based on what was and not on what could have been.

Misawa worked as a dominant ace? If you ask me, Misawa showed the full spectrum of what it meant to be ace and to have to fight to hold that position with so many challengers breathing down your neck. It seems like you're not tracking Misawa's selling and realizing how transcendent it is. Do you really think that if you replaced Misawa with Kobashi in 6/95 or 12/96 that the matches would be as good?

The problem that so many/few of us are having with intangibles is that you presented it as something quantifiable. What that means to most/a few of us is that you're going to step outside of your biases and objectively rank guys. But it doesn't seem that you've done that. How you can rank Backlund, Dory and Misawa so low is bafflingly. If the maximum score for those categories is 10 then you've lowballed all of them. Maybe you thought you were doing it for the sake of objectivity, but I can only believe that with the Dory score.

Was Misawa ever the most popular wrestler in Japan? And let's not pretend that a large percentage of that 120 million cared about wrestling. That only happened in the 50s & 60s.

Freddie Blassie gave Japanese men heart attacks. Do you have any imperial evidence that Abdullah gave kjds nightmares, Parv? Hmmmm??

Hiroshi Hase vs. Kensuke Sasaki (6/26/92) This had the best lock-up I've seen in ages. I liked all of the early jostling for position and the nastiness that crept in with the stomps to the head and Hase responding with forearms and headbutts. I've always kind of ignored Sasaki as a worker and have no idea how good he was regularly around this time period, but he came across as a powerful man who could really lift a guy. Once again I didn't think much of Hase's selling in this and after Sasaki bled the bout became less interesting to me. Hase was higher on the pecking order than Sasaki and set about putting the bigger guy in his place, but the consecutive ura-nages felt like overkill in a Kurt Angle/Chris Benoit vein even if he did stomp the proverbial mudhole in him.

Looks like that's both of them. The April one is linked to the side.

I think he's hit and miss in singles. Not really a fan of the Super Astro match. I remember the Angel Azteca bout from the same year being flawed but interesting and disliking the Ultimo Dragon bout. The Love Machine apuesta match is awful. The Octagon bouts as well. If you haven't seen the two Monterrey bouts from 2000, I really love both of those. And the El Mariachi bout I remember liking, but I have a dreadful feeling it wouldn't hold up these days.

El Signo vs. Villano V, UWA World Light Heavyweight Championship, UWA 4/3/92 I first saw this many years ago when sharing lucha online was still in its infancy. I may have written about it for this blog (I have a cold today and can't be bothered trawling through the archives.) The version I remember didn't have the pre-match interviews or workout footage, and really, who doesn't like watching luchadores train? Villano's neck-strengthening exercises were so freakin' cool. This was 13 minutes or so of what was probably closer to a 20 minute bout. It was shortened for television, which hurt the rhythm of the bout, but aside from that it's hard to go wrong with an early 90s title match where Villano V (not III or IV) gets to show his wares. He showed tremendous pedigree on the mat, and if you admire the Mendoza mat mentality (which you should), you'll enjoy the performance he gave here. Signo wasn't quite as dynamic as I remember, but revisits will do that to you. Would've liked a gap between falls to digest what was going on, and the tercera caida being joined in progress was a bugger, but bell to bell it felt like the same three-and-a-half star title bout I remembered. Worth checking out if you haven't seen it. El Dandy vs. Ultimo Dragon, SWS handheld, 3/92 Dandy vs. Dragon touring match that could have easily happened in Los Angeles and probably in a few Mexican states as well. It was laid out pretty much how you'd expect from the early mat showcase to the dives and didn't deviate from the script that other luchadores had brought to Japan from the late 70s onwards. The Japanese crowd reacted as they always did to lucha (as though they were watching something foreign) and threw money in the ring at the end for no reason other than they read about the custom in the magazines. Dandy fans will probably be curious to see him in Japan. He certainly looked like he could have been more of a regualr over there if he'd gone down that path. There were also glimpses into what a Dandy vs. Dragon program might have looked like in Mexico but it was fairly obvious stuff and there was nothing unpredictable about the exchanges they did. Mildly interesting.

Most British tag wrestling is like that, particularly the stuff from the 70s. Faulkner vs. Saint is a match-up worth checking our. I ranked their '81 bout on my list of great British and European bouts, but was a bit disappointed in their match from the 70s.

The maestro. There's no doubt in my mind he was one of the best ever but like Alan Sarjeant, Alan Wood, and others, we just don't have the footage.

Too much of a smart arse.

Big fan of his early work when he first made it on to TV. Enjoyed the period were Cullen, Moran and Kilby will all vying for the same belt, culminating in the awesome Cullen/Moran title fight. Didn't get as many good opponents after that, and was another guy like Roberts who didn't match up with Jones as well as I would have liked. His All-Star work wasn't as strong, but that's true for everyone across the board. All-Star benefitted guys who didn't have much personality or were used in a bland or boring way by Dale Martin, but it didn't really add much to the pure workers' resumes. What does strengthen Cullen's case is his early 80s Reslo work (the original Reslo not the cheesy version from the late 80s onwards.) He looks great during that period. I've seen some of his early 90s work, but it didn't add to his case. I could see an argument for him being a top 10 Euro worker for the 80s, but I'd probably have Kilby and Murphy ahead of him for ITV output, and I'd have to think about where he'd rate in relation to Roach, Singh and Steele, which pretty much makes him a player in the 80s British scene and not a strong candidate for a list like this.

He's in that cluster of really talented guys that debut in the early 80s, but he's hurt footage wise by jumping to All-Star sometime around the beginning of '86. He has a match with Chic Cullen in Reslo in '82 that's a nice addition to his ITV stuff. Watching the recent ALPRA uploads of early 60s catch, Haward seems like a throwback to a bygone era even in '81.

I dunno Parv, why don't you think that Shawn Michaels is a great worker or AJ Styles? Why do some people think Hiroshi Tanahashi isn't a great worker or Edge? Did you read back over this thread? Not rating Jericho as a worker is hardly controversial, and I was defending him. If anything I'm surprised you rate him so highly since he doesn't seem anything like Hase or DiBiase to me. I mean regardless of how I feel about Hase, I can see him being linked with Ted. That makes sense to me, but Jericho? Where's that coming from? It almost seems antiquated like we would have believed that in 1998 when we wanted him to be pushed and feud with Goldberg, or jump to WWF and have Vince find some way to make a star out of him. I'm not sure where the reference to Szakacs is coming from. Jericho seems more directly comparable to a Robbie Brookside or Danny Collins to me. Maybe a Doc Dean. Are you asking whether I think Tibor is a better wrestler than Jericho? Of course I do. What's a great worker to me? Someone who gives great performances or has great matches time and time again, or someone who just plain strikes me as great. I don't think it needs to be any more complicated than that. I've seen enough wrestling that I know when I think someone is great. The WoS is weird to me. I don't think I've ever tried to claim that anything WoS is categorically better than US style wrestling. I've always tried to judge it within the parameters of European wrestling. If I watch US wrestling, I switch into US wrestling mode and view it slightly differently. If pressed I'll make a comparison, but it's not important to me and what I actually said was that Tibor was a British wrestling God, i.e. a god of British wrestling not all wrestling. I was reared on US wrestling, have favourite US wrestlers and would be more enamoured with US wrestlers if I was focusing on them at this point in time, but I'm not and they're not a crux to my fandom.

Thanks for the heads up. It's sometimes difficult getting the names right with these ALPRA uploads, though I think Nador went by the name Michael when he wrested abroad, which can then be shortened to Mick.

Also watched The Final Bell, which was a commemorative episode to mark the end of wrestling on ITV. I'd always wanted to see it and didn't realise it was available on YouTube on a couple of channels. It was basically a highlights show narrated by Kent Walton. I have no idea how they chose the wrestlers they opted to feature, though more than a few of them appeared to be Walton favourites. The interesting thing about the footage they showed is that just about all of it ended up being shown on The Wrestling Channel. The two exceptions were the 60s footage. I'm not really sure why the producers chose to include a Jeff Kaye match from 1969 (against Mexican worker Pancho Zapatta, whom I seem to remember was also in a Bob ALPRA upload if I'm not mistaken), but the Riki Starr footage from 1964 was interesting. Starr was massively over with the Belle Vue audience and the heat was unlike any TV bout I can remember seeing. As a finale the episode was kind of slight (esp if you've seen all the 70s footage they showed), but it was interesting seeing who they chose to feature. A lot of workers were only mentioned by name or shown in stills (be it photographs or wrestling bills), but I was surprised by how little presence the likes of Pallo, McManus and Breaks had. That seemed to run counter to how much they featured on television. I was also disappointed that George Kidd was mentioned twice but no footage aired. The show finished with a snippet of Pat Roach's farewell speech from the last taped show after his classy bout with Caswell Martin and then it was goodbye to all that.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 55 Johnny South vs. Patrick Lopez (Eurosport circa 1991) According to Orig Williams, rugby man Patrick Lopez used to play tighthead prop for the French club, Toulouse, which in today's cashed-up scene would have earned him mega bucks. Surprising that the Frenchman would have gotten such little offence on a EWF taping, but also weird is Williams going on about Johnny South's 19 inch biceps, which is a far cry from the lanky South that was a foil to Les Kellett on 70s ITV television. Franz Schumann vs. Takayuki Iizuka (Eurosport circa 1991) This was okay, though fairly generic. I think the problem with Schumann is that he had too much muscle. His physique is Benoit-ish without Benoit's quickness and snap execution. Williams name drops Antonio Inoki and the fight with Ali. I swear Inoki got more mileage out that fight among the wrestling fraternity than any other contest. He also mentioned the Japanese system of farming young boys out to overseas territories but fucked up by calling Iizuka an All Japan protegee. Dunno if Iizuka was versed in sambo, either, but Williams knew how to spin a semi-legit tale. Big Daddy/Steve Logan vs. Ripper Raven/Red Devil (8/11/82) Arthur Psycho had a great line on this upload about how poor Kent Walton always had trouble getting masked wrestlers to speak to him. I've seen so many of these Daddy matches that I'm either immune or desensitised to how poor they are, but this seemed especially lacklustre. Dave Duran vs. Alex Munroe (10/28/87) Bernie Wright vs. Ian McGregor (10/28/87) Andy Robin vs. Barry Douglas (10/28/87) Ian McGregor, Alex Munroe & Andy Robin vs. Dave Duran, Barry Douglas & Bernie Wright (10/28/87) This was a special England vs. Scotland episode that featured an interesting take on the rules for these sort of "Davis Cup" ties. This time, the teams got points for the number of pinfalls or submissions they scored irrespective of the wins and loses. They were also penalised for any public warnings incurred in the event of a draw. Interesting concept in theory, but as usual Dale Martin botched the way they handled it. The Scots, for some inexplicable reason, were babyfaces while the English had a legit heel in the guise of Duran, Barry Douglas working heel for some unexplained reason, and Bernie Wright grinning like a dickhead. Duran faced a guy on his televsion debut and ate him alive. Wright vs. McGregor was okay, but heatless like most of the bouts, and Robin vs. Douglas was over in a flash. The best bout was the six-man tag, which is unusual in these episodes. Robin was all fired up and acting like a deranged old man. Duran seemed to bust Munroe's nose open hardway and there was blood all over his face. Robin wanted a piece of Duran, Douglas and Robin scuffled with more intensity than a dozen Barry Douglas bouts combined, and there was even cool spots like McGregor locking Wright in a hold and offering Bernie's hand to Duran to make a tag. Weird that there be such an edge to the usual throwaway six-man, but credit to the workers who put on a show at least.

We all know that dataintcash is an invaluable source of lucha libre footage, and we all know that invaluable sources of wrestling footage invariably disappear from YouTube, so I thought instead of letting dataintcash's channel go to waste, I'd start throwing out some thoughts about his uploads for prosperity's sake. Originally, I was going to do an hours worth of footage at a time, but since his uploads tend to be fairly long, I'll just watch what I can. With Arthur Psycho's uploads, I did these oldest-to-newest. With dataintcash, I'm going to do them newest-to-oldest just for shits and giggles. I'm also going to try to knock these out as fast as possible, so don't expect my reviews to be any good. Instead, think of them as a rough guide (if that) for what to watch. Jerry Estrada/Kung Fu/Herodes vs. Misterioso/Volador/Angel Azteca (6/28/91) This starts off with a vignette where Fuerza Guerrera drives a car through the type of home security gate you'd expect to see in an 80s television show. He takes us on a tour of what is presumably his house and introduces us to what I can only assume is his wife and daughter. If you speak Spanish, you can correct me on this. We're also introduced to an older teen boy who is either his son, cousin, nephew, or wife's brother. Then we see a young Juventud Guerrera working out with weights while wearing a Fuerza mask. Upstairs, there's a dated looking home entertainment system and the Guerrera family (or rather the boys) are listening to Metallica, which Fuerza seems to approve of. Why we were getting to see the human side of a rudo is something that's lost in translation, but there you have it. After that we get the epitome of a ** lucha trios. Despite being only **, there's a lot going on here. This was the first time I'd seen Herodes do his "crazy man" gimmick where he adopted different personas each week. In this instance he had a boxer's head gear on and a pair of boxing gloves and he commentators were calling him "Chacho Tyson" the entire time. It was weird. but he was Barry Darsow-ian in his commitment to his character. Somewhere in all this, Volador and Estrada were trying to put on a decent match, Angel Azteca was living in a post-Juan Herrera world where he'd been pushed and valued, while Kung Fu was struggling for relevancy after being unmasked. In other words, the typical hodgepodge of lucha libre wrestling. I don't know what prompts dataintcash to upload the matches that he does, but this was short on high spots and I would have just uploaded the Fuerza vignette and said stuff the rest.