ohtani's jacket

Wild Man of Borneo & Steve Haggerty vs. Ray Hunter & Al Hayes (Paul Lincoln Promotions 1960s) This was a transfer of an old 8mm Walton Films print presumably from the mid-60s. Unfortunately, whoever did the transfer didn't match the frame rate and the playback is slow. Nevertheless, it's a valuable piece of footage that shows not only the Wild Man of Borneo on tape, but also a look at a young Alfred Hayes and a spry Max Ward. People who think Bárbaro Cavernario does a good job of playing a caveman really ought to check out the Wild Man as he's pretty much the Captain Caveman of caveman gimmick wrestlers. He was a lot smaller than I expected (probably a middleweight by the looks of it) and pretty quick. His offence was obviously designed to match his character, but I liked his rolling bumps. Part of his gimmick was that no-one had ever seen his face so he wrestled with his hair covering his eyes and every time he'd bump you'd get this tiny glimpse of his face, which was neat. Hayes didn't show a heck of a lot of fire as a blue eye, but the tag structure was fortunately better than a lot of the World of Sport stuff. Not as good as the catch matches from the same era, but much clearer tag psychology and a fun bout. There's a short silent version on YouTube, but I have a longer sound version.

Have you seen this, TIm? It degenerates into a cheap brawl like a lot of Tijuana/Monterrey stuff, and Katana is a ridiculous gimmick for Leon Chino, but the first Santo vs. Espanto exchange is quality.

I've seen a few matches of him as a kid. Too young to pass any judgement on.

People keep mentioning how it took Michaels a while to click as a singles wrestler, but both Austin and the guys he worked with are forever mentioning how he was like a chicken with its head cut off for much of the 90s.

Depends what you classify as their start, I guess.

Apparently, Onita was working in the construction industry as a labourer before he got the JWP gig. I think he also had a stint as a delivery man. Shinma Sr wasn't directly involved with the management of Hamada's UWF, but his finger prints were all over it. If you combine JWP, FMW and Hamada's UWF, you'd get Shinma's vision for what his second UWF would have been like. The original JWP's history is quite interesting.

There's a bit of info in the Observer recap forum. WON 11/28/88 WON 12/12/88

They say people die in threes, but Christopher Lee, Dusty Rhodes and Ornette Coleman is one foul swoop. Maybe I'll play some Dusty Rhodes promos over the top of Dracula while listening to some jazz.

The origins of Hamada's UWF are a bit complicated. Hamada had been working as a referee and trainer for the original JWP The promotion was on the bones of its ass and management had begun working with Hisashi Shinma to transition the group from a women's wrestling group to something similar to the original UWF with a mixed roster and different styles of wrestling. Onita was working for the promotion as a sales rep to pay back some debt on a failed business venture, and they ran an angle which was supposed to lead to a Hamada vs. Onita fight, but the crowd reacted negatively and I believe the JWP girls opposed the idea as well. Onita left and formed FMW while Hamada worked with Shinma's son, an advertising industry guy, to found the UWF. I believe the name is in reference to pop's breakaway promotion, which Hamada worked for as its leading lightweight star. Hamada's UWF started the careers of Ultimo Dragon, Gado and Jado, and all of the M-Pro guys. The latter spun off and created M-Pro in 1993 while the former jumped to WAR.

Owen worked short gimmick matches with Shamrock, so unless they had a straight match at some point it's tough to make a comparison since Shawn was liable to make a guy look bad on purpose. Not that Shamrock was a bad worker. He was just more adept at shoot style. It's not like Owen was all that great at the time either. That whole era of WWF is checkered if you're looking for great matches.

It's their 6/18/81 match from Wembley Arena. Joint Promotions, or Dale Martin Promotions in conjunction with Joint Promotions if you want to get really picky. itvwrestling.co.uk is the go to site with dates along with britishwrestlingarchive.co.uk, but you have to use the way back machine for the latter. That's a bollocks version of the "fight" though as they've dubbed over the top of Walton. EDIT: Okay, it was only an intro.

Great Match Theory is okay as a theory, it just has a poncey name. Might as well go all the way and call it Auteur Theory. John Tenta was an auteur working within the confines of the WWF studio system to produce iconic works about the fat man's struggle in post-Regan America.

Tenta was better than Albright, also that is not what I was saying. Williams` resume was greatly padded by his opponents and most wrestlers would have more great matches in that environment than without it. Look at Johnny Ace. Was Tenta better than Albright in UWF-i? Williams was significantly better than Johnny Ace in All Japan. I don't think anyone thinks Ace is a great worker because he had good performances in All Japan. Williams rose to the occasion in All Japan. If he hadn't lifted the standard of his own work, his matches against Misawa and Kawada would have been on the same level as Misawa/Gordy or some other solid albeit less memorable encounter. Besides, if you take away All Japan, Williams still has US work to fall back on. Take away Tenta's best run and his position is far flimsier.

The problem is they stuck him in there with Mutoh, who was more popular than him but wasn't taking this Tenryu thing seriously. They should have paired him with another lower tier guy like Nogami so that he stood out head and shoulders above his partners; the way Tenryu's poker buddies are only ever there to have Tenryu's back. Hashimoto came across as second fiddle to me despite the bout having little to do with Mutoh. It didn't help that he left his feet so often. I don't think Hashimoto trying to bowl Tenryu over with leg lariats is the most bad ass way to kick start their rivalry. You'd expect to see them go nose to nose or something. There was a cool spot where Tenryu was beating on Nogami and Hashimoto broke it up with a kick to the jaw, but after that they flubbed Hashimoto and Mutoh making the save and the War team stopping them a second time. The finish was weak compared to the usual Japanese tag finish because of the mistimed interference, but they didn't coil the Tenryu/Hashimoto issue around it either, which is kind of a running theme with these WAR vs. NJ tags so far in that they're not that sophisticated. Fun and heated, but not that clever. So far, anyway.

The New Japan side were way too peppy in this. Tenryu's team looked like he brought his poker buddies along while the New Japan guys were bouncing around playing to the crowd and reveling in their early-nineties-ness. I don't know what Mutoh thought he was doing on the apron, but evidently a blood feud was the last thing from his mind. That spot where the New Japan guys all dropped elbows on Tenryu was the lamest thing I've seen in forever. Ostensibly, the bout was an excuse for Tenryu and Hashimoto go at it, but only one of them was acting badass and it wasn't the New Japan guy. Tenryu punting Nogami was about the only thing I dug here. Which isn't to say it was a bad match, it just wasn't that cool. Who will step up to the plate and match Tenryu for charisma?

I guess Dave is bored with New Japan this year.

I'll do a full write up later, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I appreciate what Alex says about them going in a different direction but they left me at the station. Thanks for the upload, though!

Alan Sarjeant vs. Jon Cortez (8/25/76) Alan Sarjeant vs. Jon Cortez, could this be anything less than brilliant? Well, for the first two rounds it was completely mesmerising and I was ready to declare it one of the best WoS bouts ever. Then Sarjeant injured himself from an awkward fall and Cortez easily took the one fall required for victory. It looked like the planned finish, but if so, why couldn't they have gone another two rounds? Bitterly disappointing.

The 1/8/93 Tenryu/Hara vs. Aoyagi/Kabuki handheld is really good. Four older guys stiffing the heck out of each other while the feud rages on. Ditch called Aoyagi limited, but if anybody knows a guy who does a better karate gimmick let me know. Tenryu vs. Aoyagi is a thing of beauty and the best thing about the Mew Japan feud so far. They absolutely pelt each other every chance they get. Tenryu is a colossal prick and busts Aoyagi open with the heel of his boot, and there's a killer spot where Hara is holding Aoyagi's leg up and Tenryu does this running elbow strike that almost sends Aoyagi's leg two rows back. Tenryu was the goods in this. Momentum swings back in his favour after the ugly Tokyo Dome match.

The trouble is there wasn't much CMLL taped during that era because everyone wanted to trade AAA. We'll probably never know who had the best year in '94.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 9 Chic Cullen vs. Rasputin (Unknown location, taped 1983) One of the best guys around vs. one of the worst workers I've seen, what's gonna happen? Rasputin was a tall, Rasputin-looking Irishman who some of you may be familiar with from that Fit Finlay documentary. He was a classic kick/punch wrestler with almost nothing else in the way of offence aside from elbows and eye rakes and the occasional choke; but I'm happy to say that on this particular evening goodness won out and Cullen got the best match out of him I've seen. This was a lot of stomping the canvas to make the strikes sound good, but it at least looked like they were laying their shit in and Cullen sold well. Won't blow your mind, but would fool you into thinking Rasputin wasn't that bad if you didn't know better. Get back to me in six months and I'll probably be claming 'putin wasn't that bad, but that's my story for now. Greg Valentine vs. Jimmy Ocean (10/26/88) "Farmer's Boy" Greg Valentine? Shouldn't that be Promoter's Boy Greg Valentine? This was the second to last match on ITV ever. If you haven't seen Jimmy Ocean, he's actually worth checking out. A pint sized little showman with peroxide hair and an 80s tache doing an age old Adrian Street gimmick with a fair bit of panache. Pretty zippy worker and a big bumper; I think he would have carved out a niche for himself in the era of TV stars if he hadn't come along right at the end. Probably as an enhancement talent like Black Jack Mulligan. Marty Jones & Steve Taylor vs. Skull Murphy & Johnny South (8/24/88) This was hands down the biggest disappointment of The Arthur Psycho Hour to date. I thought this had the potential to be really good w/ Jones, Murphy and South all involved, but it was an incredibly shitty attempt at playing WWF style wrestling instead of beating the tar out of each other. It started off promising with South having shaved his head to form The Manchester Hardman with Murphy, who was bedecked in La Parka's wardrobe. Skull cut an amusing promo where he claimed he didn't even know who Steve Taylor was. Jones retorted in his inimitable style. One of the greatest workers to ever live and one of the single worst promos in the history of the racket. Steve Taylor was the older brother of Dave and I guess coming out of retirement for this. He should have stayed retired. This sucked. Murphy and South cheated like brats instead of dishing out an asskicking and Marty spent more time posturing with his lazy eye then proving he was still world class. Taylor might as well have been invisible. Not good. Alan Kilby vs. Colonel Brody (3/5/87) What's a South African colonel doing being valeted by a black French woman? I'd love to say that was a political statement but somehow I doubt it. You've got to love Walton mentioning Brody was born in England. Why don't you just tell everyone that he's Magnificent Maurice, Kent? You know you want to. They barely aired any of this, but I doubt we missed out on much. Gary Clwyd vs. Jack Davey (Porthmadog, taped 1988) I had to ask on another forum whether Mike Jordan and Jack Davey were one in the same or separated at birth, and it turns out that they are two different people and that Davey was a ref for Orig Williams. I'm not sure whether that means he was a legit proper worker or not because he looked like the world's poorest version of Mike Jordan and I've never been that high on Jordan, but man were they the splitting image of each other.

Santo seems as good as anyone else in trips that year. Rey and Psicosis weren't as good as they'd become in '95. Panther might have had a case if the Octagon matches hadn't been so bad. Satanico fell off in '94, and Patka and Lizmark were victims of Pena's irritating booking. I always have positive things to say about Mano Negra in '94! My pick would have been Dandy if he'd shown me anything outside of the Llanes feud and maybe some exchanges opposite Casas. I'm figuring it has to be an AAA guy.

That was pretty funny. Jerry should make an appointment to see a shrink.

You should watch his peak years from '96-99. I don't know how much of it is online still. Real Man's Man uploaded a bunch of it, but it was on Megaupload and went poof. I'm not a huge fan of the BattlARTS style, and I'm kind of anti tag matches in shoot style, but I do like Ishikawa and you probably won't have as many hangs-up as me. Plus you get to check out guys like Ono. Also worth checking out, if you really get into him, is his PWFG stuff. Looking through my old shoot style list on WKO, I have these matches listed as worth watching: Yuki Ishikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka (2/28/97) Yuki Ishikawa vs. Hiroyuki Ito (10/9/04)

Warriors aren't playing as well as you said they would, Elliot. The Cavs are uglifying things. It's Choshu vs. Tenryu out there.