ohtani's jacket

Ozaki is definitely one of the better actors in wrestling. Really phenomenal talent who will probably get undersold on the final list. There are a lot of interesting wrinkles to that tag. Kansai and Ozaki were career rivals who tore strips off each other in their home promotion of JWP, but teamed up to defend its honour against the larger AJW organisation, which could have swallowed JWP whole if it wanted to. Ozaki was a heel in JWP, though an extremely popular one due to her charisma, and Kansai was the ace. I always thought she did a remarkable job of projecting herself as ace of such a small company. Toyota and Yamada had been positioned as the latest idol team ala Beauty Pair & Crush Girls (cute girl paired with sporty type), but without the schoolgirl audience they were forced to get over in a different manner. They had a competitive rivalry the same as Beauty Pair and the Crush Girls but without the hatred of Kansai vs. Ozaki. The reason Yamada has a shaved head in the bout is that she'd lost a hair vs hair match to Toyota a few months prior. They were the reigning WWWA tag champions at the time, which was the big prize in this feud besides JWP's fight for recognition. From memory, quite a few of the JWP girls were AJW rejects so there was a bit of real life feeling behind it. I'm pretty sure both Kansai and Ozaki were All Japan rejects.

A week-to-week review of Casas' work would take years to finish. The only person I can imagine who's seen that amount of Casas is Bihari. His career from 2009 or so has been covered in depth and his 90s stuff has been fairly well combed. I actually think it's his 2000-08 period that's a blind spot, or at least a blind spot for me. I would strongly recommend anybody who enjoys a Casas match on Chad's list to go and watch the trios matches surrounding it. If you're not watching the lead in matches, you're only getting half the fun.

I think Nagasaki's a decent worker both on the mat and as a brawler. His matches in the 70s got a tremendous amount of heat and he had an awesome finisher. But there's guys who haven''t been nominated whom I think are better.

Sloppy is probably the wrong choice of words, but I don't really rate Anjoh on the mat and Tamura wasn't as slick as he'd become. I like Anjoh as a striker and the match picked up for me when he started threatening with the knee.

Great thread, elliot. You're way higher on young Tamura than me. Just to check whether I'm crazy or not, I re-watched that Anjoh match, which I've always thought was sloppy and overly long. Anjoh is a guy who I think is a fine worker but completely overrated as a shoot stylist. I can imagine people who don't have a bug up their arse (like me) thinking their draw is epic, but to me it's s stop start average affair. Then again you thought his Sakuraba stuff was fun when to me it was the future, so folks' mileage is always gonna vary on shoot style stuff.

Some final thoughts on Flair vs. Garvin then. I guess it goes without saying that I preferred the '85-85 stuff. Garvin made the best of his lot in '87 despite not being a naturally strong promo, but Flair was disappointing throughout, and the booking of hi immediately challenging for the belt and reprising "A Flair for the Gold" from five years earlier made Garvin look two bit. As for whether Garvin was one of Flair's best opponents, I'd say he was one of Flair's best TV opponents but not really one of his better arena opponents. The '85 studio bout is the pinnacle of what they achieved together. The booking, promos and matches weren't strong enough for it to be an all-time great feud, but at the same time the journey was enjoyable when they'd slap the shit out of each other or deliver an impassioned promo. Glad I watched it, but would probably only revisit the early stuff.

Flair/Arn/Tully/Luger vs. Garvin/Windham/R&R, CWF, 11/21/87 The disc said this was from 11/28, but the commentary talks about Starrcade being a few days later so I figure it aired on the 21st. Looks great on paper -- actually, it looks amazing on paper -- but it's fluff. Ric Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin, 11/26/87 This was all right. I think I liked it more when I hadn't seen the entire two year build to it. It's easy to watch a match like Starrcade '87 in isolation and think "oh, that's nowhere near as bad as people say," and to an extent it isn't, but it's not some under-appreciated, under-pimped gem either. The biggest problem is that the crowd is dead and therefore it's hard for them to have a match as intense as the '85 studio bout, which remains the gold standard of Flair vs. Garvin bouts, but they don't really aim high either. You can't really argue that they go to the end of the line to determine who the better man is. They put more effort into that '86 Omni closer than they did here. Pretty much anything that was good about this was a tried and true Flair/Garvin sequence and the whole "Flair as challenger" slant sells Garvin short, IMO. Ross is terrible on commentary. The seeds of Ross at his worse during the Attitude Era were there as early as the UWF buyout and perhaps even earlier. I actually felt kind of bad for Garvin when he dropped the title knowing that a simple job like that was pretty much it for his competitive career. Perhaps the worst thing of all was that he really didn't get to show all that passion and determination that he'd conveyed during the build-up because the match didn't push the workers any further than a run-of-the-mill bout despite Ross trying to tell us it was one of the most important victories of the Nature Boy's career and the most physical contest he'd seen since the week before. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 11/28/87 Flair's the five time Word Champion, and while he claims he's going to be more obnoxious and overbearing than ever before, he does give Garvin credit for having been a World Champion. Mostly, he runs down the Starrcade results, talks up the Horsemen results and downplays Luger's loss to Dusty. And that's the end of the feud.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 49 Battle Royal (8/2/78) This was an amusing little battle royal with a six man field of Pete Kaye, Jackie Turpin, Johnny England, Kid Chocolate, Young David and Bernie Wright. Apparently, it was the first time they'd run one of these on TV. Joint had this strange habit of running singles matches first and then lumping everyone in to the battle royal to cap things off, but I guess that's what happens with foreign imports. The match came down to Young David against Tally Ho Kaye and Johnny England. The heels gave Davey Boy Smith the heave-ho and Kaye eliminated England from behind while Johnny was posing. You've got to love heels deceiving each other like that. There's no honour among thieves, Johnny England. No honour among thieves! Rasputin vs. Andy Blair (4/11/84) Rasputin was being billed as Sean Doyle here even though Walton mentioned on commentary that he sometimes went by the name of Rasputin hence why he wore a monk's habit. This was part of a Northern Ireland vs. Scotland special that Northern Ireland whitewashed 3-0. Poor old Scotland. I could never understand why they'd always do whitewashes instead of making it 1-1 and having a decider. I guess they found it more realistic this way and would occasionally throw in a decider. Rasputin was better here than he'd be later on. Grasshopper vs. Black Jack Mulligan (6/16/82) Last few minutes of a nothing bout. Mulligan usually made guys look like a million bucks but not on this occasion. Tony St. Clair vs. The Barbarian (Eurosport circa 1991) Dave Taylor vs. The Barbarian (Eurosport circa 1991) A couple of matches with Dave Sullivan. Pretty much what you'd expect. Fit Finlay vs. Doink the Clown (Bremen, taped 12/17/94) This is the kind of match where you think "awesome, Finlay vs. Doink in Germany" and then it's not that awesome. I don't think this was Matt Bourne, but I doubt it would have made much difference if it were. Crowd was anti-Doink. Dick Slater vs. Franz Schumann (Bremen, taped 12/17/94) Holy shit, Schumann was ripping Bret Hart off like you wouldn't believe. Might as well have called him Franz "The Hitman" Hart. I guess Bret was pretty big in places like Germany and Austria kind of on a par with David Hasselhoff. If we have fake Undertakers and fake Road Warriors why not a fake Bret? Match was nothing special, but Schumann did go to the effort to blade so I guess that's something.

You can find the TV results at itvwrestling.co.uk For house shows you have to stick britishwrestlingarchive.co.uk in the wayback machine. If you're trying to figure out what match you're watching on YouTube, you can use http://www.britishwrestlingdvds.vze.com/ which has all the air dates.

Results from '73 are sketchy at best, but I wouldn't put my money on it. There were so many shows run on a daily to weekly basis that there wasn't a ton of continuity when it came to the cards. That was one thing that set Paul Lincoln apart as he booked ongoing storylines and Dixon was much the same when he came along.

Kendo Nagasaki/Gorgeous George vs. Mick McManus/Steve Logan (5/26/76) The set-up for this match was ludicrous as Walton claimed McManus and Logan had sent Kendo and George a telegram challenging them to a match. It could have been a tremendous spectacle if they'd played it right similar to the times that other managers would wrestle like Heenan or Cornette, but instead it was a total mess. How seasoned performers like these couldn't work a simple match based around the fact that George was in over his head is beyond me, but so few guys in the UK were good at tag wrestling and Gillette was more interested in his man looking good than showing ass for McManus and Logan. It didn't help that McManus and Logan looked like midgets compared to Kendo, making them look less than threatening even in a handicap match, or that the heel vs. heel aspect was barely even played upon. The finish was weird too with McManus clapping Nagasaki and George for winning after Gillette had just cut a promo on them. So much for any hopes that this would be fun.

Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 10/24/87 Garvin delivers another strong promo about how Flair used the world title for five years to get whatever he wanted. He says Flair used people and stepped on them for his own good and that he was wrong to do it because the title represents the people and the people deserve a real man. Someone in the crowd hollers "people's champ!" and Garvin says that's what he's aiming to be. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 10/24/87 Flair cuts a decent promo explaining the prestige, the notoriety and the fame wrestlers are looking to get from Starrcade (as well as the money and women.) He gets in a great line about a million bucks looking better on his side of the fence than Garvin's since Garvin would probably spend it on a pickup truck and a new pair of suspenders. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 10/31/87 Flair is in full on shill mode here running down the Starrcade card and claiming that the NWA is going to take New York the night before. Can't say I'm a fan of Flair in shill mode but the whole Survivor Series deal was casting a long shadow over the build-up and Flair was trying to do his best sales pitch. In regard to Garvin, he cracked a great line about Garvin's month as champion driving around in his pickup with a couple of fat broads. Whoo! Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 11/7/87 Garvin says Flair is in a state of panic now that his income has dropped. Garvin doesn't want to live the life of the rich and famous since he's just a plain old boy driving a pickup, but he wants to keep the title because he's worked hard all his life. The whole working class/blue collar bent on this feud is basically a redux of Dusty Rhodes being the son of a plumber, but in fairness to Garvin he worked hard at trying to get himself over as the people's champ even if they weren't taking to him. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 11/7/87 More shilling from Flair. Man he's been disappointing in '87. Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 11/14/87 Garvin is wearing a Top Gun cap and a denim jacket. Garvin likes jeans and he likes his pickup truck and he's gonna keep driving a pickup truck and gonna keep wearing jeans, and apparently 180 million other people in America wear jeans too. He gets fired up about how Flair says he's a 60 minute man but only lasted 41 against him in Detroit and that makes him a liar. He's out to make sure Flair's house, his limousine and his Mercedes get repossessed. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 11/14/87 Flair goes on a rant about how he was born with a "golden spoon" in his month, which I guess is even more privileged than a silver spoon. Then it's into shill mode and a riff about how in this era of free agency guys like himself and the other Crockett stars are working for the number one organisation. There's nothing else happening on Thanksgiving and Garvin has to wrestle the man who is going to be five times the World Heavyweight Champion. .　

Onto the final disc... Starrcade Control Center, UWF, 10/17/87 It's hard not to get fired up for Starrcade when you hear that theme play. Jim Crockett makes an official announcement about the Starrcade return match and then they discuss the situation with Terry Taylor and Nikita Koloff. Ronnie Garvin vs. Tully Blanchard, UWF, 10/17/87 Some decent action while it lasts but Tully was noticeably jaded by '87. Hearing Jim Ross' hyperbolic nonsense was a shock to the system. I think I prefer Tony and David. Ross calls this the most physical contest he's ever witnessed. Garvin knocks Tully out then takes J.J. out too. The Horsemen hit the ring and Flair busts Garvin open. Garvin is hurt pretty bad and if it weren't for the Road Warriors may not have made it to Starrcade. Flair/Arn/Tully/Luger vs. Windham/Rotundo/Lightning, PPW, 10/17/87 According to Ross this is going to be one of the greatest 8-man tags in the history of television. The angle they work here is so poorly handled. Horner gets injured and Garvin takes his place, but the trouble is that Garvin comes to ringside prior to the Horner injury for no apparent reason. Nobody pays any attention to him, Horner gets attacked by Dillon off camera and Garvin steps onto the apron with no reaction from the Horsemen whatsoever. Once he tags in it's the usual white hot action between Flair and Garvin, but you'd think they would have set it up better than that. The match goes off the air with Ronnie kicking ass. Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 10/17/87 Garvin hasn't looked at all right as World Heavyweight champ, but this is the most passionate promo he's delivered during the entire feud. It's simple and direct but he cuts to the heart of the matter by labeling Flair a challenger and ex-champion. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 10/17/87 Flair gets all wound up and almost loses his voice. He goes on a rant about the Starrcade card and launches into a tirade against Terry Taylor, Eddie Gilbert and the UWF. Finally, he gets around to Garvin's comments and we learn a little about the pressures of being an ex-champion with a lifestyle as expensive as Flair's and his inner fears of hanging around in a bar talking to some floozy or geek and telling them he used to be World Champion. He gets that deranged look in his eye when you know he's close to breaking point then signs off with a bit of swagger about the Nature Boy coming to New York city. Not a great promo but it just about left him breathless.

The more people talk about these matches the better. One guy beating the drum all the time's not going to go far. Besides, I don't have matches like Breaks vs.Saint to watch anymore so it's fun to see other folks discovering them. Keep sharing your thoughts.

Jumbo vs. Bockwinkel (from Hawaii) is an excellent bout mostly because of Nick's selling, but Jumbo is solid on offense. One of the better 70s Jumbo bouts in my estimation.

Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Fujinami seemed like a big one in the 80s.

Ric Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin, 9/25/87 Now we come to the one everyone's been waiting for. Let me put this out there right now -- this is not a five star bout. A five star bout would be one of the greatest matches I've seen and one of the greatest matches of all-time, and this is not one of the greatest matches of all-time. IMO, it's their 3/86 house show match inside a cage. They don't use the cage until late in the match and there's not much point in it being a cage match other than it keeps Dillon and the Horsemen out, but it's not completely unsatisfying in terms of being a Flair/Garvin match either. Particularly, a Flair/Garvin match with an ending. If you've followed the storyline then it's a satisfying pay-off, but only three stars or so. A five star Flair match ought to be pretty transcendent and nothing about Flair's performance goes beyond the house show matches they had in '86. He puts more passion into the post-match promos than he does the bout itself. Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 10/3/87 This is the greatest feeling of Garvin's life, etc. Garvin says in the cage match win that it's better than getting married or the birth of a child. I can tell you from experience Ronnie Garvin that nothing tops the birth of a child, but keep cutting those promos Ronnie. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 10/3/87 Flair gets all philosophical about what it means to be the champion and how it feels to have people chasing you. Ronnie Garvin promo, WWW, 10/10/87 Ronnie Garvin and Jim Crockett promo, WCW, 10/10/87 Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 10/10/87 Garvin gets hung out to dry as a weak promo. He has to lean on Dusty's line about the hunter becoming the hunted a lot. He also keeps making the same mistake about his prediction about being world champ in '86 being too late instead of too early. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 10/10/87 Flair continues to be philosophical about what it's like to be champion and how it feels to live his lifestyle without the championship belt. Then he gets weird comparing what he's going to do with Garvin with girl on top vs. missionary position.

Volk was 30 when he debut in RINGS so that may disqualify him.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 48 48 hours of the dregs of professional wrestling and boy do we have some dregs for you today. Kid Chocolate vs. Grasshopper Phil Johnson (8/23/83) This was amusing as apparently there was too much going on in football for Dickie Davies to show us anything more than the scoring rounds. It's actually the first time I've seen World of Sport skip the finish like that. For what it's worth, Johnson was a lot more serious in this bout and looked like a decent talent who turned to comedy to get over. Mal Sanders vs. Carl Jason (2/8/86) This started off fairly promising even if Jason going up a weight to challenge for Sanders' middleweight title never would have flown on ITV. But after one round of technical wrestling it turned into a bullshit brawl where it was no longer clear whom the heel was. At one stage, Jason grabbed Sanders by the nuts and the commentators were in stitches about it. Awful bout. Jamaica George vs. Giant Haystacks (Eurosport circa 1991) Haystacks defeated George on television for the 1000th time and decided to hurt him a bit afterwards. Tony St. Clair had finally had enough of it and decided to sort Stax out. Now Tony, I love ya, but probably not a good idea to do that in hot pink. Couldn't believe that Williams called George a negro in this. Twice as a matter of fact. Yikes. "The Undertaker" Shane Stevens vs. Flesh Gordon (Eurosport circa 1991) Yip, Shane Stevens was doing a fake Undertaker gimmick. Man did Gordon get a lot of mileage out of the fact he could a flying head mare and a front dropkick. The thumbnail for the vid captures the goofiness of Gordon perfectly: Afterwards, Gordon lifts some kid up on his shoulder and Williams says he'll be able to tell his grandchildren he was there the night Flesh Gordon beat the Undertaker. It takes audacity to deliver a line like that. Stevens cuts a promo afterward with a shrill ghostly voice and stupid Williams blabbers over the top of it. Tony St. Clair vs. John Quinn (4/12/86) This is joined in progress. I'm not sure how much is missing, but it's basically an angle as Quinn undoes the corner pad and turns St. Clair into a bloody mess. That was an uncommon sight in British wrestling and something that was never done on television, so you can imagine the kind of heat Quinn got for it. People are standing around the ring legitimately worried for St. Clair's safety and demanding that Frank Casey disqualify Quinn but the decision stands and Quinn claims the vacant heavyweight title. He had a great run in the UK employing the basics of North American wrestling on an audience that been reared to be disdainful of yanks and their all-in style. He wasn't the first as Butts Giraud did the same gimmick before him, but nobody milked it as well as Quinn and it's a shame so much of it was off the air in All-Star.

Ronnie Garvin vs. Arn Anderson, Pro, 9/12/87 Ronnie Garvin is glory bound and it's up to the Enforcer, Double A Arn Anderson, to stop him from reaching Flair, which he tries to do with headlocks and tests of strength. It's one of those bouts where they try to wear each other down and create the sense of an epic struggle, and while it's psychologically sound, it's a bit like eating your meat and veg. Dusty provides most of the entertainment on commentary, though he does a lot more shilling than in '86. I love how he always needs a beer on commentary because the action's so hot, and in this case he wants a pretzel to go with it. He has a great line about Arn's "titty" being knocked off into front row, which leaves Caudle speechless. Dusty eventually gets involved and you'd have to be watching pro-wrestling for the first time not to know what happens next. Dusty in a jeans and a white shirt and tie makes for an amusing visual in the torture rack. Garvin gets laid out this time and there's no arm raised in victory. I can see this ticking all the boxes for Andersons psychology lovers, but I thought it was weak compared to Garvin's work with Flair and Tully. Ronnie Garvin training video, Pro, 9/19/87 Are training videos ever a good idea? Certainly not when Tony Schiavone is cutting an awkward promo in the same room as Garvin. I think only Japanese wrestling does these vignettes well as they tend to film real training instead of staging it. The video ends with Sinatra singing "My Way" to a montage of Garvin knocking blokes out. The editor gets a nice little shot in on the "and not the words of one who kneels" line of Flair begging off, and we're set for the big one. I'm gonna drag it out a bit more and let the excitement build.

The 7/90 Misawa/Hansen match isn't very good, but I'll cut Misawa some slack here as he was trying to be the "new hero" and I don't think he had much clue how to do that only a month after beating Jumbo. Plus it wasn't much of a 90s "King's Road" bout (to borrow a term I kind of hate.) There were a couple of times when Misawa used a chair and he even tried to use Hansen's bull rope, which was a throwback to old-school All Japan and not what I'd call progressive in terms of the King's Road style. Even Hansen wasn't that great in this, but it's really early in his program with the kids.

I didn't realise he was still over there. Good for him. That Fung Fu spot is an old comedy bit from way back. You can imagine the faces Les Kellett would make if some barefoot wrestler went fiddling near his nuts.

I believe the correct date on that is 4/12/90.

It's the real Nagasaki. The fake one goes by the name of King Kendo.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 47 Hellraiser (Steve Regal) vs. Serge Ventura (Eurosport circa 1991) Regal looks extremely uncomfortable trying to work a masked heel gimmick. Orig keeps pushing him as being from Hell's Kitchen, New York, and then the onscreen graphic lists him as British. Ventura is supposedly Italian, but this same show listed Johnny South as Irish and Haystacks as American so he may have been from Stoke-on-Trent in the Potteries for all I know. Has Regal ever talked about this? Even with a mask on he looked glad it was over. Legend of Doom vs. Raging Bull (Caernarfon, taped 2/27/95) "Legend of Doom" was Johnny South's Road Warriors tribute act that he used to roll out on shows where they'd have fake Undertakers and shtick like that. He was a pretty decent looking Hawk actually, though the similarities ended there as he didn't wrestle anything like an LOD member. Raging Bull was PN News seeking a new lease on life in the UK. It's funny because a guy like PN News would have had a more respectable career in the UK than he did in the States; he just would have been paid a hell of a lot less. Anyway, PN News vs. a Road Warriors rip-off. This went on for way too long. Tony St. Clair vs. Masa Chono (Bremen, taped 12/17/94) I'm not a huge fan of Chono, but this was all right. There as nothing "European" about it, which kind of bored me, but St. Clair continues to impress me with his work even into the 90s. Danny Boy Collins vs. Johnny South (Eurosport circa 1991) This had the potential to be pretty good, but no amount of hype from Williams about either man could mask the fact that it was fairly disappointing. South was trying to lay on his heel shtick a bit thick, and when he does that his matches tend to go south, to crack one hell of a pun. Doc Dean vs. Danny Boy Collins (Caernarfon, taped 2/27/95) What was with Orig Williams and dancing gimmicks? First it was Dave Taylor then Drew McDonald and now Doc Dean. At least he got a pair of dancing girls, but a disco gimmick in 1995? Maybe they still had discos in Wales. Pretty good bout. Dean was a good worker. By this stage, the UK style had become homogeneous with wrestling from the US and Japan and lacked the idiosyncrasies that I find so appealing about it, but these guys could work. Owen Hart vs. Colonel Brody (Eurosport circa 1991) Classic Owen promo in front of all his French fans. God, Williams makes some howlers on this. First he tries to tell us that referee Mick McMichael is one of the six best wrestlers in the world then he talks about how the enzuigiri is a dirty trick and that Stu Hart would have taught babyface Owen all the dirty tricks in the game. He even talks about Owen taking a "bump." Weird. I love how neither Williams or Walton make any secret of the fact that Brody isn't actually South African. Way to put over the gimmick. Maybe the apartheid aspect was too much. I'm not a fan of Owen's early work and this is no exception. All sizzle no steak. Interesting that Orig mentions Hart is off to the States to form the New Foundation with Jim Neidhart. Walton never had a clue what was going on in American wrestling and would spin any old bullshit about wrestlers selling out Madison Square Garden. He could never pronounce McMahon properly either. Owen was a million times better as "The Rocket" Owen Hart than he was during his world touring days no matter what the sheets might have told you.