ohtani's jacket

I've been trying to watch as much 50s and 60s Von Erich as I can find. Highlights include a wild brawl with "Whipper" Billy Watson where Von Erich stooges for referee Rocky Marciano, and Gene Kiniski and a bunch of security guards get involved; film of a great looking fight between Kiniski and Von Erich where Fritz brutalises Kiniski before the bell; Fritz popping commentator Joe Blanchard with a right hand in the post-match interview, and clips of heated bout between the two; and a battle of the big boys with Yukon Eric.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 32 John Savage vs. Beau Jack Rowlands (10/31/85) John Savage was Johnny Smith of Stampede and All Japan fame. I don't think I've ever watched a Johnny Smith match so that doesn't mean much to me, but he got a decent win here over journeyman Jack Rowlands as Joint tried in vain to build up new stars in the wake of all the defections to All-Star. Rasputin vs. Greg Valentine (9/16/87) Rasputin was one of the worst guys on the circuit mainly because of how limited he was offensively, so I thought this would be a decent test of whether "The Promoter's Boy" Greg Valentine was worth his salt or not. To his credit, young Crabtree did a good job bumping and selling for the big man then got a cheap DQ win because, you know, he was the promoter's boy. Dave Taylor vs. Psycho Shane Stevens (8/30/86) Screensport bullshit under a big top. I don't think I can stress enough what a poor idea it was for a British promotion to try to be American. There are some things only the Americans can do well, and what made Freestyle Wrestling on WoS work for so many years was that it was quintessentially British. The "Psycho" Shane Stevens gimmick was an embarrassment not helped by the atrocious Screensport commentary or the lacklustre wrestling. Way too many duds like this in Taylor's locker. Jim Breaks vs. Peter Bainbridge (6/8/88) Breaks hadn't been on TV for two years when he made this random appearance on the stand alone ITV show. He was older and pudgier, and beginning to thin out of top, but petty much the same old Breaks. His job here was to carry 16 year-old Peter Bainbridge the same way he had done Dynamite Kid, Young David, Danny Boy Collins, and probably others too. It started out okay, but for some reason it ended prematurely. It didn't seem as though the editor cropped much out, so I guess Breaks wasn't interested in entering this into the pantheon of great Jim Breaks matches. i'll cut him some slack since it was 1988. Danny Boy Collins vs. Tony Stewart (4/7/90) Pretty easy workout for Danny Boy Collins. I've been harsh on the kid in the past, but he matured into a better wrestler in the 90s. It was just a bad decade for a British worker to mature into a good worker unless they ventured abroad to New Japan or WCW.

Iska Khan/Gen Tilly vs. Yves Amor/Pierre Rouanet This was another of those impossibly cool French catch matches. It wasn't the best of ALPRA's uploads by any stretch of the imagination, but gave us another look at the 60s French scene and more insights into the rich history of professional wrestling in France. Iska Khan was a wrestler of Mongolian descent who appeared in a number of French films, including Belle de Jour. He didn't come across as anything special in this, but any wrestler who appeared in a Bunuel film is all right by me. Yves Amor wore the skimpiest pair of trunks ever. They were at least two sizes too small for him. Steve Veidor and Tibor Szakacs would have been embarrassed to wear them, and if you've seen what those guys wore in the 70s you'll know what I mean. Some cool grappling in this, but it didn't really have the build that most of us are looking for. More of a long exhibition than a compelling threepenny opera, and Khan didn't shine enough for it to be a must-watch.

I'm just not sure I think like that. I mean if you gave me 10 wrestlers to rank I'd probably compare them against one another, but if you asked me who the 100 best workers are it's an open slather. Mind you, when I've done these sort of polls before I usually get hung up with whether X wrestler fits right at 23 and whether 23, 24, 25, 26 flows well. I probably care more about how it looks on the page than the rankings themselves.

My comment about Flair was perhaps churlish, but I don't get why Flair is used as a barometer for everything. I'm listening to a Rod Stewart album at the moment. It's the first Rod Stewart album I've listened to in my life. It's pretty good, actually, but I'm not comparing it to any sort of standard. Subconsciously, I may be comparing it to the music it sounds like, but I don't have any fixed standard in mind. The last movie I watched was Preston Sturges' Hail the Conquering Hero, which I probably compared to other Sturges films and maybe other screwballs, but I didn't really give a damn how Sturges' direction compared to anybody else. Wrestling is a strange thing in that we seem to compare workers to other workers and not to our collective understanding of wrestling as a whole. I agree with a lot of your criticisms. You know I don't like long All Japan tags, though you tolerance is clearly higher. But to me the argument is about broadway wrestling in general and not whether others were great at it. A dissenting view on Dandy/Azteca is a great thing. I will take people by surprise at first because it's been so well received after being anonymous for *years*, but in order to digest your criticisms you do need to give examples. I don't believe people are as set in their ways as you claim. MJH once critiqued Santo/Psicosis and I kind of balked at first, but I rewatched it and thought he was right. If you really want to critique matches, you have to get your elbows dirty. If you time stamped that, I think people would have watched it and offered an interpretation.

Compared to the amount he wrestled it's a handful. But I think it's 30 odd.

Of the original guys mentioned, Robinson strikes me as the best. Great offensive wrestlers to me are all about execution and not moveset. Finlay and Marty Jones were awesome offensive workers in the early 80s because their offence looked so good. Keith Haward was a wrestling machine. Even a guy like Breaks, when he'd wrestle, his stuff looked so good. Navarro is a beast. Hokuto had amazing execution. A lot of guys can have rollicking offence without great execution like Hashimoto or Tenryu, but everything Dynamite Kid did, for example, looked great even if his matches weren't perfect.

I thought this was an old thread that Childs bumped, but apparently Mick was only just nominated. So he's flying even lower under the radar.

The last time I watched these matches (for Ditch's best of the 90s poll), I enjoyed the early 90s era more than the '93-97 period. Not only the six-mans, but also the Misawa/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Taue tags. The only thing I wasn't high on was Jumbo's singles matches against Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi. The six-mans were the pinnacle. They're dream six-mans in terms of what you'd want from that tag format.

This isn't true. You said you would time code an example of what you didn't like about it and never did. A Kawada critique is a worthwhile thing. It's the constant comparisons to Flair that irk.

I always liked her better than Aja because of JWP being The Little Promotion That Could and Kansai being the heart of that. I doubt you'll get many takers, though.

If we had more of his 60s stuff available he'd be a surefire lock for the list. Based on his mid-70s work, I could see people having him in the upper reaches of their top 75. The thing about a guy like McManus, and I think this is particularly pertinent in regard to his WON HOF induction, is that he never gets critiqued. A guy like Flair gets a 5 part podcast mini-series made about him and McManus hadn't even had a comment made about him until Childs bumped this thread. That's kind of where we are with Mick despite the fact he was voted into the WON HOF. I almost feel like he got voted in by hearsay more than anything else. On that basis, he's probably not ready to be voted onto the GWE list.

See, that's interesting. When I first got a bunch of 1989 & '90 El Dandy, I immediately thought "yeah, this guy's the man," so it's hard for me to imagine anyone having a disconnect with him. I would actually credit that impact with me wanting to dive into lucha completely whereas with WoS it was Myers and Grey and then Rocco and Jones who sparked my interest in the stuff.

Parv mentioned in a recent podcast that Dandy didn't have the immediate impact for him that a guy like Jim Breaks did. I have a vested interest in this since Breaks and Dandy are two of my all-time favourite guys and both had a huge impact on me the first time I saw them. But I wonder who impressed others more. If you've never seen them before, try for yourself. Here's Breaks in one of Parv's favourite matches of his: And here is Dandy vs. Satanico from 1990:

I know it's tricky. Usually, the name of the promoter is on the turnbuckle pads. In this case, it's confusing because they say Victoria: Victoria refers to the venue: the Victoria Baths in Nottingham, which was a Morrell and Beresford stronghold. The majority of the time the padding will say Dale Martin, but sometimes the television was taped in other territories such as Relwyskow and Green. But basically it's all Joint Promotions up until 1987 unless it's satellite wrestling on Screensport or Reslo.

I hope you won't mind this correction, but All-Star didn't appear on ITV until 1987. Finlay/Adams was Joint Promotions.

Am I the only one who thinks Hansen can be just as cartoonish as Funk?

There was a split in JWP during this very month (October '91) that led to the promotion folding in January of '92. Rumi Kazama was fired and Shinobu Kandori led a group of girls to break away and form a new promotion called LLPW. Dynamite Kansai, Mayumi Ozaki, Devil Masami, and Cutie Suzuki, etc. remained loyal to Masatoshi Yamamoto, who bankrolled a relaunched version of JWP dubbed JWP Project. JWP Project had its first card in April of '92 and LLPW followed suit in August, so it was relatively seamless. JWP essentially existed as a promotion for the entire decade. They were able to strike a TV deal with WOWOW, but struggled at the box office, and though beloved by fans like myself, were never really able to present a viable alternative to AJW's dominance. The original JWP started with a hiss and a roar in '86 and they had big plans to be what All Japan was to New Japan, but it never took off. They uncovered a bunch of talented workers and provided a place for AJW retirees to keep working, and also made a valuable contribution to the interpromotional era, but the promotion was a failure if we're being brutally honest. It still exists, though, as a small indy so it has longevity going for it.

It as an 8mm film from the same ebay source as the Masambula bout. The other Jones/Rocco bouts available are: Marty Jones vs. Mark Rocco (6/30/76) Marty Jones vs. Mark Rocco (7/26/78) Marty Jones vs. Mark Rocco (9/13/78) Marty Jones vs. Mark Rocco (12/30/80) Marty Jones vs. Mark Rocco (6/8/88) The first two bouts were uploaded by tellumyort a long time ago via Real Man's Man, and I think Arthur Psycho has uploaded the two 80s bouts. I haven't seen the one from '88 yet, but from memory the 1980 bout is JIP. The '78 title bout has never been uploaded, but I ripped it for Jimmy recently and anyone who wants to see it can PM me.

It seems feasible to me that there were workers who were quite happy to work a Flair style match. I mean who's going to turn their nose up at a heated main event that draws well? And even within the confines of having to work the match Flair's way there were still opportunities to get yourself over by selling well and projecting some kind of aura.

I'd like to think when Mark Twain coined the phrase "there's no such thing as an original idea" he was referring to Rudman luv. I've also never done coke, but if you can cut a promo that good while stoned they ought to lace the RAW catering with the stuff.

This may be true, but Tamura wrestled once a month and spent the rest of the time training.

It's a bit hard to go back to the dregs of World of Sport after those rarities, but here's another hour's worth: THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 32 Steve Logan vs. Peter Wilson (7/11/84) No offence to Peter Wilson or Steve Logan, but I can't imagine anybody really wanted to see this on television. Kendo Nagasaki/Mark Rocco vs. Fuji Yamada/Clive Myers (1/13/87) All-action tag with no rhyme or reason to it. It wasn't bad, but it was closer to the Mark Rocco on the New Japan set than the Rocco I've been so high on lately. Tony St. Clair vs. Soldier Boy Steve Prince (Caernarfon, taped 2/27/95) 1995... this is some seriously late Reslo. I don't know if you'll remember this, but Steve Prince was the guy who Fit Finlay stiffed mercilessly during a match on ITV. Back then he was wearing a black gi and wielding a katana blade. Here he'd changed to some sort of soldier gimmick. St. Clair was professional with him, as you'd expect, despite the fact he hadn't improved. Andy Blair vs. Red Ivan (3/5/87) As big a squash as you'll see on British television. I believe Red Ivan worked as Vladimir Krupoff in Stampede, not that the name rings any bells with me. Poor old Andy Blair was roadkill here so that Ivan could be fed to Daddy a week later. Then after that he was never heard of again. Grasshopper Phil Johnson vs. Ray Smith (4/6/88) The only memorable thing about this was that Smith took the liberty of stomping Grasshopper's bare feet. I've always wondered why guys didn't try that against barefoot wrestlers. The answer is that it doesn't hurt.

Someone found it randomly among some 8mm films they bought off ebay. I got it from a private collector.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Doesn't need to be write-ups or anything. Just throw some stuff out there when you have it sorted. In the meantime, there's this: Mick McManus vs. Jackie Pallo (5/5/62) I guess I never need to see another British match now that I've seen the most famous one of all. The most most noticeable thing about the bout to begin with is how different the wrestlers look from versions I'm used to. Pallo is mainly younger looking, but his hair is even poofier than in the 70s. McManus has combed down widow's peak that looks nothing like the slicked back, greasy hairstyle we're familiar with. He had to have been wearing a hair piece in the 70s. This is pretty much the ultimate needle bout. You can count on one hand how many wrestling holds there are. They lay into each other with stiff looking shots and throw each other about. The first two rounds are full of niggle almost to a fierce extent. They're arguably the most intense rounds of the bout as they do a fantastic job of meeting the public's early expectations. The story was supposed to be that after dodging Pallo for so long, McManus could no longer avoid him, but unfortunately there was a side stake of both men putting up a 100 pounds for a winner take all kitty that Campbell wouldn't stop obsessing over. That took away from the narrative at times, as I doubt either man was motivated solely by the side bet, but the in-ring stuff was fast and furious. McManus was by far the better wrestler, and when he did apply holds he looked like Arn Anderson compared to Pallo, but Jackie's forearm smash was good enough that he could remain credible up against the better worker. There was none of the shtick you associate with McManus, most likely because of the magnitude of the bout but perhaps also because it wasn't as big a part of his routine in those days. Instead he came across as a wrestler's wrestler who happened to be a prick. There was the occasional shit eating grin so synonymous with McManus when he's on top, but other than that it looked like a different version of Mick. Pallo seemed to get gassed as the bout went on, and it slowed down a bit in the middle rounds, but Jackie's equaliser was a great spot. He had McManus in a Boston crab which he lost hold of. McManus attempted to scuttle out of the way but Pallo caught him in a second attempt with absolutely exquisite timing for a fantastic looking fall. I'm not sure whether it was a blown spot or if they intended for McManus to counter, but it put the ball back in Pallo's court like an equaliser should. As stated, they grew a bit tired toward the end, but gave it their best in the final round. The match has grown in legend over the years, but nothing was meant to be settled on this particular evening and a draw was probably the best result for the effort that both men had exerted. It was an excellent match, but I thought the Howes/Lageat bout was never notches better and wouldn't rate McManus/Pallo any higher than **** making it far from one of the greatest matches of all-time, but that's largely down to the fact that Pallo wasn't as technically good as numerous British wrestler and what you're watching is really a complete worker in the form of McManus going to the dance with a showman with huge hair. Which basically proves McManus' side of the argument as to why he didn't respect Pallo. Maybe I'm biased toward Mick, but I thought Pallo slowed this down at times due to a lack of conditioning. Still a cracking bout, though.