ohtani's jacket

Sampling lucha on Galavision isn't a great way to get into it, IMO, as lucha doesn't make for great week-to-week TV. But the biggest obstacle to getting into it is this idea that it's something foreign that needs to be deciphered and interpreted. Lucha can be confusing as heck whether it's because of the language barrier, the inconsistent booking, or the lack of continuity in the television, but it's only inaccessible if you watch it randomly.

I love Steamboat more than most people here do, but this point is absolutely true. Steamboat was much better when he stuck to amateur greco-roman stuff mixed with his trademarked work-the-arm offense, he was a pretty poor martial artist. Of course, "karate fighter" is maybe the worst in-ring gimmick anyone can have, and practically nobody can sell it believably and have good matches at the same time. Trying to do this bullshit was a major part of killing Billy Graham's career. Has ANYONE ever made a successful career out of it? All I can remember are guys like Glacier and Steve Blackman, who were walking examples of why nobody should try to wrestle like that. Even heavily gimmicked "martial arts strikers" like Low-Ki, Rob Van Dam, or even Shinya Hashimoto used the karate stuff as just one part of their much larger overall bag of movez. The only really successful guys I can think of with martial arts styles were basically MMA hybrid fighters, dudes like Taz or Brock or pick-your-favorite-worked-shooter-here. They used plenty of strikes, but focused more heavily on submissions and suplexes and whatnot. I dislike martial arts gimmicks, but for some reason they were successful in the UK. Kung Fu had a long and successful career doing a martial arts gimmick. Clive Myers spent a large chunk of his career doing a similar gimmick, and there were other acts like Sammy Lee and Chris Adams that were successful. Kendo Nagasaki worked a quasi-martial arts gimmick and there were numerous guys who played up their judo background even if they didn't necessarily wear a gi or wrestle barefoot.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 35 John Elijah vs. Prince Mann Singh (10/26/88) John Elijah was such a stalwart, appearing on ITV right up until the end. Here he was on the undercard to Big Daddy's farewell appearance giving us one last no-frills heavyweight power contest. Elijah wasn't the type of wrestler that has great matches, but I enjoyed each and every one of his television appearances. A great wrestling man. I did get kind of tired of Walton reminding us each and every time that his hobby was paleontology, though. That and Elijah's bear story were two of the most singularly repetitive Walton anecdotes. Pat Roach vs. Colonel Brody (3/19/88) Older Pat Roach had a hard time moving about, but I was surprised by how much better this was than the Steele bouts. In fairness to Steele, they were wrestling in Birmingham where Roach was, of course, a beloved son, but Roach was a better seller than Steele and his bouts generally had more drama to them, as you might expect from a wrestler turned actor. Roach made Brody look aggressive here, which was quite the feat. Tony St. Clair vs. Greg "The Hammer" Valentine (Germany, taped 1992) Imagine my surprise when this turned out to be Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and not Crabtree's son. I don't know how good this was technically, but I'm such a mark for the Hammer I loved every second of it. The finish sucked, but the Hammer! Bearcat Wright vs. Ian McGregor (6/5/85) Just the finish. They were trying to turn Bearcat Wright face as Walton kept referring to him as "Bernie" Wright (after telling us he was Canadian all those other times.) Wright refused to accept the decision when McGregor was injured on the outside; the ol' blue eye classic. Seemed like a waste of time repacking Wright only to turn him face. Danny Boy Collins/Greg Valentine vs. Sid Cooper/Black Jack Mulligan (6/5/85) Mulligan and Cooper, what a team! I normally dislike young athletic teams but something about Collins and Valentine clicks for me. Mulligan was such a pro. He was fantastic in this as he always was. Some of the double team spots in this were a bit off, but that was a small blight on what was a genuinely exciting contest and a great showcase for the young guys Dale Martin were trying to get over. Greg Valentine really wasn't that bad a worker despite his privileges.

btw, is this match online? Not finding out for yourself what's going on in a match is laaaazy.

The lucha you watched was mostly from AAA. AAA looked to up the tempo and workrate of its matches in what I think was a fairly deliberate attempt to distinguish itself from the more stodgy and traditional CMLL. It did big business in its first few years and got plenty of coverage in the Observer. When older Wrestling Classics posts talk about lucha, they're really talking about that period of AAA and how it compared with juniors wrestling and the WCW cruiserweight division. It's easy to see why negative attitudes existed toward lucha. It's strange looking compared to juniors wrestling. The impression I get is that most people expected to see a juniors match transposed into a different setting and were confused by what they saw. Even Parv is warmer to the luchadores who traveled to Japan and incorporated some of that juniors influence into their work like Casas and Wagner. But AAA is one promotion, and the mid-90s is an isolated period from that company's history. Even at the time, there were differences between what the young generation were doing and what the older UWA and EMLL workers brought to the table (a lot of which wasn't pimped at the time because lucha brawling was viewed as poor.) I agree with elliot that it's not really fair to single out a Rey Mysterio Jr trios as "lucha." It would be like watching a Great Sasuke match and broadly calling that "Japanese wrestling" when in reality both countries' wrestling is multi-faceted. But to put it in a nutshell, no the matches you watched don't have great psychology. And yes, lucha has psychology. But it's not like All Japan or the NWA touring champ style, and I can't imagine any true fan who would want it to be.

I downloaded as much Nishimura as I could, and while I can understand Ditch being excited for another Nishimura/Saito match, a match that was clipped in half and took place in New Japan and not Muga is not really a big addition to the man's oeuvre.

The Morgan/Oro match is for the NWA World Light Heavyweight Title, which just goes to show how difficult it is to remember which matches are title bouts.

I re-watched the Toyota vs. Ito match from 8/17/01. It's an awesome match that's pretty much a typical Toyota match except it has a harder edge because she's playing a bitchy veteran heel. There were a couple of things I didn't like about it such as the crowd brawling and the fact that Ito seemed like she was wrestling The Legend that is Manami Toyota instead of stamping her authority on the match as The Woman in All Japan at that time. But the stretch run was great stuff. Toyota proved she could sell with the best of them and even when she popped up for stuff it was exciting. I'd chalk the whole thing up as a great post prime performance.

I think they created CMLL as their governing body when they split from the NWA, but don't quote me on that.

I'm not really sure about modern CMLL. In the early 90s, EMLL changed its name to CMLL and overhauled all of its titles. Prior to that most weight classes had two championships contested -- a national title and an NWA world title. The NWA titles were generally more prestigious than the Mexican national titles, though the national titles were important too because of how wrestlers were pushed through the lucha mags. Generally speaking, holding a title of any sort meant you were good enough to be a champion and in those days being a champion carried a lot of weight. I would say that traditionally the best workers competed for the welterweight, middleweight and light heavyweight championships and generally moved up through those weight classes. Unlike in other countries, the heavyweight championship was never that prestigious and neither were tag titles. Trios titles came along a little too late to be as prestigious as the singles titles. There weren't Mexican National Trios Champions until 1985. I would say mask and hair victories far outweigh the significance of the national heavyweight title in Mexico. Hope that helps somewhat.

Watched the '92 Hansen vs. Kawada match. Pretty much what you'd want and expect from those two. A very simple and direct bout, but it built well, Hansen's selling was top drawer, and Kawada looked like he had a shot at winning until Stan got mad. The most interesting part of it was the structured build and how Hansen adapted to the apparent change in the house style around this time. Whereas the Tenryu bouts were aimless a lot of the time, Hansen really stuck to the script here. If you watch enough of this stuff it starts to get formulaic as you see the patterns emerge, but Hansen's selling keep this organic and reasonably free flowing despite an almost layer by layer approach to building the bout. It looked like a fight and felt like a contest and that's enough to satisfy most folks I'd say. Kawada was good without being great. I don't know how far I'll go with this, but I'd be interested in finding the point where he becomes undeniably great.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 34 Johnny Kidd vs. Ian McGregor (2/5/85) Decent WoS bout wrestled in the classic lightweight & welterweight style. McGregor was easily the best of the 80s teenage wrestlers not because he was especially charismatic, but because there was nothing cringe worthy about him. I'm not sure how far he could have gone if wrestling had remained a mainstay on British television, but to me he doesn't carry any of the stigma that the other "boy apprentices" do. Dave Finlay vs. Franz Schumann (Merthyr, taped 2/4/92) It's possible that Dave Finlay's post-Paula era is worse than his Princess Paula era. Franz Schumann was kind of like a poor man's Austrian version of Chris Benoit, at least on offence, but boy was he disinterested in selling. This had some hard hitting moments, but everything in between was a bore. Finlay was an awful worker at this point. Possibly the most glossed over awful period of all-time. Has there ever been a more noted worker who had a period this bad? Drew McDonald vs. Tony St. Clair (Caernarfon, taped 2/27/95) Drew McDonald had gotten pretty fat at this point. He looked like a tattooed version of Adrian Adonis. For some bizarre reason, Williams was billing him as Scott Chippendale, or something equally ridiculous, and he had a manager in a bowler hat doing a Bill Dundee Sir William rip-off. Ah well, it was 1995 Reslo. The most notable thing about this was Tony St. Clair busting out top rope moves he could have only learnt in Japan. Shaun South vs. Boston Blackie (Newcastle Emlyn, taped 2/5/92) Blackie without a moustache is weird. His stock has fallen pretty fast for me, but he was really just a victim here to set up the cool South vs. Schumann chain match. The ref was ridiculously lenient in this bout. Mindbogglingly lenient, in fact. Tony St. Clair vs. King Kong Kirk (8/30/86) This was from Screensport. On one hand, it was psychologically sound and a fairly realistic heavyweight bout between the newly crowned World Champ St. Clair and the heavier Kirk. On the other hand, it was slow and there was a type of fatalism to it that it wouldn't mean anything by bout's end. Which it didn't.

There's not that many title matches from the 80s available. These were the highest ranked matches on the lucha set: Gran Cochise vs. Satanico (9/14/84) Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (1/27/84) Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (2/3/84) El Dandy vs. Emilio Charles Jr. (12/1/89) Pirata Morgan vs. Brazo De Oro (11/17/89) These matches rounded out the top 50: Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84) Lizmark vs. El Satanico (April 1984) Atlantis vs. Emilio Charles Jr. (8/12/88) Not sure about the date on that last one. Some of the dates on the lucha set were iffy. For the 90s, Bihari's old 4 star lucha list includes title match listings -- http://www.luchawiki.com/index.php?title=Top_Lucha_Matches_of_All-Time Dandy vs. Azteca, Dandy vs. Casas and Dandy vs. Llanes have good reps. Loss really likes Dandy vs. Black Warrior as well. The list doesn't include Santo vs. Espanto Jr from '92 which surfaced after it was made. The most underrated match on the list is Rayo Jalisco Jr vs. Apolo Dantes

Ditch made the same mistake.

This could change at the drop of a hat, but I'd go Fujiwara, Han and Tamura. Fujiwara had the longest run (from '84-94) and had great shoot style matches in three different promotions (UWF, UWF II and PWFG.) Tamura was by far the most athletic of the three, but held back in UWF-i the same way Sano was. Han, on the other hand, was able to express himself freely. As I hinted to before, he had less to prove and wrestled with the same sort of sagely tongue-in-cheek style that you'd expect from a master schooling young apprentices. He was good and he knew it whereas Tamura was hell bent on proving the world wrong.

It could be something I'm remembering strangely, but to me Volk would do walk-off home run finishes like the '95 bout I mentioned that were incredible to me.

This is sheer brilliance. Now I have a mental image of Parv as Vivien Leigh in Waterloo Bridge.

Yumi Ikeshita is a tough one to make match recs for. You kind of have to just sample here. I can't remember which Black Pair tags are the best and even a noted singles match like Ikeshita vs. Hagiwara is clipped to shit, which I imagine will be frustrating for you. I love Yumi Ikeshita, but I'm not sure she is top 100 worthy unless you throw a bone to personal favourites.

The Hiro Saito match from 2006 isn't anywhere near as good as the Fujinami bout, but it's actually a better watch in terms of what Nishimura brings to the table. Instead of being blinded by a phenomenal performance from Fujinami, you've got Nishimura working a longish bout against a pretty generic tough guy Japanese wrestler. The focus here as really on leg selling. If you like matches where guys are targeting a body selling and there's a near perfect internal logic to the work and consistent, long term selling then you'll lap this up. Nishimura really does have a sweet European uppercut. I don't think he uses it as well as the Europeans did with their forearm smash contests, but it's a sweet imitation.

Well, I don't think her work was at its peak, but physically she was in her prime and those were her peak years on top.

I've always found Volk charismatic. I agree he was cavalier in the same way that Fujiwara was. Both of them had a great sense of humour and didn't mind popping the crowd with a sight gag. Tamura's urgency seemed to stem from a constant need to prove himself. First as a young boy then after his split from UWF-i and in his efforts to draw. One thing I don't think Tamura did as well as Han were finishes. I can't remember a Tamura bout that has as exciting a finish as the '95 Han vs. Yamamoto bout.

I totally agree that if Toyota had remained the solid worker she was from '89-91 she would have had a career not unlike Suzuka Minami. The others all had something going for them. Kyoko was charismatic and a joker. Hokuto had indomitable will power. Aja was bigger than everyone, and Yamada was a "shooter" and Chigusa clone. Even Hotta was like Omori mach 2. Toyota was a shy, soft spoken girl who needed to do something to stand out and that something was to go a million miles an hour and do moves no one else was capable of. Don't forget that Toyota was 21 years old in 1992. How many all-time great matches do we know of that feature 21 year olds? If you watch some of the vignettes a lot of the girls are ridiculously immature outside of the ring, particularly the younger ones like Hasegawa, yet in the ring they're deadly serious. But we're still picking holes in the psychology and work of 21 year olds. I think her work from '89-94 is enjoyable. I don't like her peak years '95 and '96, but I don't really like much about AJW as a promotion at that point and would rather watch GAEA and JWP. Her '97 and '98 post-peak work is more to my liking. One thing that Loss didn't cover was that she played quite a good bitchy heel. I know she got praise for that during the brief AJW resurgence in '00-01, but it was present in her late 90s work as well.

BTW, I'll send out the lists when I get home from work. For some reason, this thread is starting to remind me of efforts to reinstate the Macho Man.

Well, I didn't mean that Parv literally discovered Brisco. I meant that Brisco has been a discovery for him during the viewing period, as in he's discovered how good a worker Brisco was. Brisco's not a guy who gets talked about a lot around here. I don't think there was a Brisco thread in the Microscope until Parv made one. A lot of folks who come through here weren't around to read what was written about Brisco on The Other Arena, and the stuff being available on YouTube or Ditch's site is not quite the same as when All Japan Classics were in vogue; not to me anyway. Discovery is the wrong word, but Parv's thread about Brisco certainly got me to watch a couple of Jack's matches, and certainly I think the Brisco nomination thread would be dead if not for Parv.

Jackie Sato and Nancy Kumi came out of retirement to start the original JWP, so I suppose they'd be the first veteran workers. We don't have much of that era on tape, though. Devil was the first to transition almost directly from her AJW retirement to working as a vet and then the Jumping Bomb Angels followed suit.