ohtani's jacket

Taue being pimped is not really a new thing. I don't want to get into a whole big "there are no original ideas" thing but it's been done on various boards over the years by various people who came to this stuff years after the fact. The idea has simply been rejected less, or should I say embraced more, as it becomes less and less sacrosanct that there were the Big Three + Taue. Again, I don't want to get into any pissing contests about who said what, when, about Taue, but the established wisdom for a long time was that he was a late bloomer. A lot of people have challenged that over the years as they've become endeared with early 90s Taue.

This is tough since I just watched the Dibiase/TA Magnum matches the other day whereas I haven't bothered to watch a Bret match in years. Bret was, at one time, my favourite wrestler, but I've long since made my peace about that. I'd draw the line at this: Bret got the most out of his ability by becoming a multiple time champion whereas Dibiase never fulfilled his potential. Dibiase was more talented, but Bret believed in his shit more. So, I'd probably take Bret. Choshu is a big, dumb, goofy worker who's fun to watch because he's so over not necessarily because he's good. His charisma adds buckets loads to his bouts. If you don't buy into that, he's as boring as shit. Austin is far more visceral. He was the closest thing to a modern day Texan as wrestling allows. Part Terry Funk, part Hansen, part Murdoch, part whomever else. Choshu was an amazing foil for some amazing wrestlers. Coin flip? I'll choose Austin on the basis that if you uncovered footage from both guys worth watching I'd be more interested in the Austin you uncovered. Bad timing since I've hated Liger's work in Reslo. Liger is boring whereas Volk is the supreme master. By all sensible standards Liger should be the winner here, but he's not a guy I hold in the same esteem as Volk. Liger reached a peak with the Sano feud and it was downhill from there. Volk kept pushing the shoot style form until it became an art. One strikes me as an artist while the other is kind of eager. I choose Volk for his wizardry.

Yeah, Buddy in a cake walk. I don't like the way Buddy lies in holds but that's the only weakness in this comparison. Saint was in some great matches but they were mostly due to the match-ups and not carry jobs. Even the Brookside match is against an incredibly game young man. I will say that it's equally effective as the Martel stuff albeit in a different style, and there is one tag from the early 70s I'd rate as better than any Rose tag I've seen, but I wouldn't give Saint the credit for that. The deciding factor, aside from the overwhelming number of lousy Saint matches, is that the extent of Saint's character work was that he is Johnny Saint compared to the whole Playboy character. There's also a misconception that Saint *is* British wrestling, which I pretty much loathe, but I don't think it's fair for that to creep into the comparison even though I just let it.

I don't get the feeling that Tommy Lee is backing me up.

Fujiwara, and I'm not sure it's close. One of the greatest mat wrestlers of all-time, mixed a stand-up game with defensive prowess, and was equally adept at brawling and working carny, pro-style bouts. I suppose the only thing keeping him from being a complete all-rounder is the fact he didn't take to the air, but that's about as novel as Satanico doing a tope. Rey is good, but he worked a more choreographed style and I don't think he has the brawling skills or mat work to match Fujiwara. I also don't see an argument for Rey being a great luchador per se, and while that won't mean much to others it means something to me. Hashimoto in a heartbeat. I don't have a lot of negative things to say about Savage, but I will say that I prefer his mid-80s work to the matches he had later on. I especially found the 1997 DDP feud extremely disappointing during the WCW poll. Hashimoto was just an absolute force. Don't get me started on Hashimoto or I'll start gushing about bushido and Japanese concepts of masculinity and all sorts of shit. I don't know if anyone's gone through 90s NJPW with a fine tooth comb, but my only criticism of Hashimoto would be that he doesn't have the deepest back catalogue of great matches. But then neither does Savage really. I'm not sure these two are really so dissimilar, but I'd probably lean towards Santo as there are clear periods I enjoy (early 90s UWA period, '96-97 CMLL, sporadic 00s) whereas with Lawler I'm really only interested in his prime Memphis work. Peak vs. peak, head-to-head, it would be interesting to compare a Lawler Memphis feud complete with blowoff match against a Santo feud complete with apuesta match, but we don't have the footage for Santo. Both were formula guys and both excelled at brawls. Santo has the execution and spectacular moves and is better on the mat, though not great by any stretch of the imagination. I'd lean towards Santo. Terry is entertaining. I could watch nothing but Funk promos and be entertained. But I've never thought he has the matches. They just don't exist on tape. Casas was (and most would argue still is) a genius, and there is plenty of Casas on tape. You could maybe argue that Terry is better offensively as I think Casas is better at selling than he is at actually wrestling, and irrespective of what I said about Terry not having the matches, you could probably match up his best matches alongside Casas without Funk coming off second best, but the constant run at Arena Mexico has more weight for me. This is really tough, though. Virus. Bobby Eaton has never had a singles match as good as Virus' ten best singles bouts, and I can't think of a single area where Virus doesn't match or better Eaton. ​Aside from the Sir William stuff, I'm only really familiar with Dundee through one feud. It's an all-time great feud with great promos, great TV and great arena matches, but it's still only one feud. I'm not a massive Eddy fan and the idea of watching Dundee is far more appealing to me, but I probably couldn't take Dundee in good faith. My only reservation is that Eddy is increasingly a one feud guy for me since I don't care a lot about him outside of his work against Mysterio. This is tough. I like both of these guys. They're the kind of guys where you can throw on a random match and usually find yourself enjoying it, and actually my frustration with both guys is the same: a limited pool of great matches. Tully's a better studio wrestler in my view, but overall Regal was probably the more talented wrestler since Tully spent most of his matches backtracking before cheating to win. I'm a bit guarded over Regal since I think his influences were better workers, but I'll give him the points victory over Tully. I will say if you consider brawls, Tully was better. Regal had the tools to be a great brawler, but he never really got the opportunities to show it. Vader, but only because I like his Bull Power stuff and was never into Onita matches. Vader wouldn't rate that highly for me otherwise. When he's not potatoing people I find a lot of his stuff staged, but it doesn't get much more staged than explosions. I'll finish the rest later, or not...

Maybe this belongs in the confessions thread, but I can't be the only one who thought that wasn't very good. Somebody back me up.

Living in Japan probably skewers my perspective, but I'd go Misawa, Kawada, Taue, Kobashi. I agree with GOTNW that rating Taue as highly as Misawa and Kawada is underselling them, but for a long time I did the same. I always always fond of what he brought to the table from 1990-94 when the standard line was that he improved dramatically in '95. What I don't really agree with is all this praise for him being a guy who knew his limitations and was a clever worker. During that period he was finding his feet and those limitations really were limitations. The dude was awesome, but I think people go overboard with the credit when everything I've heard is that he didn't exactly eat, sleep, breathe pro-wrestling.

Are you talking about his debut in WCW or his earlier Florida/Japan/WWF work?

To me, Misawa worked at a higher level than Jumbo and had much more complex and sophisticated matches. I've never seen a selling performance from Jumbo comparable to Misawa at his best.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 5 The Mighty Chang vs. Fuji Yamada (Amlwch, taped 2/5/87) Absolutely horrific. Princess Paula vs. Tracy Kemp (Porthmadog, taped 1988) Never seen Paula wrestle before, so why not? She wasn't too bad. As you can imagine there was a lot of kicking and punching and all of the other visceral elements of women's wrestling like scratching, biting and hair pulling. You'd think being on the road with her husband so often she'd learn how to throw a better punch, but her biggest asset was the fact that she looked like such a bitch. If you've seen her manage Finlay you can probably guess what it's like when she's the centre of attention. This was a squash match but the crowd gave her plenty of grief. Comparable to a British Sensational Sherri w/ Sherri perhaps having more of a penchant for the over-dramatics. Dave Taylor vs. Judd Harris (Llandudno, taped 7/13/83) Back to the early 80s. I much prefer this era of Reslo. Even the host is better with British Lions and Welsh rugby star Ray Gravell fronting the show. That won't mean anything to anyone except ButchReedMark, but's cool to have a Welsh rugby connection to Reslo. I've never been a huge fan of Taylor, but he was one of he stars of the Reslo footage (the complete master tapes of which have apparently surfaced, btw.) Harris had a huge beer gut. You don't get that sort of gut over night. That takes work, boyo. It's too bad he was extremely limited as he got fantastic heat. There were two young girls giggling their heads off in the front row, who were squirming like hell when Harris took a bump over the ropes and stumbled near them. That was more entertaining than the bout which was one of those heel wear down bouts that drag when you don't care about the heel or the babyface. Still love this era of Reslo, though. Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Boston Blackie & Gary Clwyd (Caernarfon, taped 4/6/90) Really fun bout. Finlay was back to his early 80s best for this Riot Squad tag bumping and stooging his ass off. Murphy wasn't quite as good as he had been in the 80s, but the magic was still there in terms of the Riot Squad. Such an underrated tag team. The fact that people are oblivious to this facet of Finlay's career is something that ought to be rectified as he ought to have a better reputation as a tag wrestler than he does (which is presuming that he doesn't have any reputation as a tag wrestler, unless people thought he was good in TV tags in the WWE). Even Regal kind of has a rep with the Blue Bloods and he Riot Squad fucking annihilate the Blue Bloods; I mean, who are Boston Blackie and Gary Clwyd? I saw Clwyd the other day in a boy's bout, but here they looked like a badass babyface tag team. Do you know how hard that is to do in British wrestling -- to look badass as babyface tag team? The Riot Squad deserve more attention. Robbie Brookside vs. Doc Dean (Pontardawe, taped 4/4/89) OK, now this was something. These two were long time partners on the British indy circuit as The Liverpool Lads with their struggles as independent wrestlers being captured in Robbie Brookside's Video Diaries documentary for the BBC. I think they ended up getting a gig with NJPW through Finlay's connections and later becoming jobbers for WCW, but at this stage they were like the Bryan Danielsons of their day. This was a really beautiful old-school style bout with some fucking great wrestling. It actually blew me away as I was expecting to be plenty cynical about it. It would be easy to say it was a ROH syle deliberae homage to old-school WoS and therefore not authentic, but fuck it... It was great WoS wrestling and up there with Brookside vs. Saint and the better of the two Brookside/Regal handhelds.

Jean Corne/Michel Falempin vs. Jean Menard/Jacky Richard (8/2/77) You know when you get to the 70s colour footage that wrestling at the Elysée Montmartre is dying, but there's still something cool about this maestros era. The only way I can describe it is that it's similar to BattlARTS in terms of being a hybrid style with a constant flow of exchanges. I wasn't enamoured with the falls in this, but the individual match ups were great. Corne and Falempin were still plying their Les Celtes gimmick (with visibly green trunks this time) and Menard and Richard were right bastards. Throw in the old man, Delaporte, and Couderc cackling away on commentary, and you've got another unique French pro-wrestling experience. Jean Corne/Rene Cabellec vs. Jacky Richard/Guy Renault (10/12/81) This may have been from 1981 but it was easily one of my favourite catch bouts to date. Just one awesome exchange after another. The flow of the match will be difficult for people unfamiliar with catch, because there's no three part narrative like most people want from 2/3 falls; but if you look at it through the lens of work as I know plenty of you do, it's like a perfect Monterrey style work rate style tag tucked away from the bright lights of Paris and just pure catch. This was a great bout.

Teri Funku and Dori Funku Junia. OJ is that legit? If so awesome. Well, GOTNW is right about the vowel lengthening at the end of Dorii and Terii. The extended katakana for Fa is just a way to cater for a foreign sound not present in Japanese. I was trying to make it easier for you to pronounce as fan-ku would be odd. In Japanese, the tag team is called Za Fankusu.

Teri Funku and Dori Funku Junia.

There were lightweights working super fast in the 60s in Europe, and I'm sure it goes back further than that and originated across the Atlantic. It was more specifically the style that DK brought to Stampede that was directly influenced by what Jones and Rocco were doing together. Regal also gives them credit for TM vs. DK.

Jim Breaks vs. Zolton Boscik (6/20/73) Jim Breaks with a full head of hair! This was a slow burner to set Boscik up as the next challenger for Breaks' British Lightweight Championship after he'd successfully defended it against Saint on Cup Final Day. The way it was worked was that Boscik took an early fall, which left Breaks chasing on the scoreboard, and in vintage World of Sport fashion he never really got close to an equaliser. The more frustrated Breaks became, the more the crowd started to get his goat. One woman in particular was constantly giving him an earful and Breaks would holler at her to sit down and shut her fat mouth before finally exploding into one of his classic tantrums. Nothing none of us haven't seen a dozen times from Breaks before, but it's a bit like watching afternoon TV and seeing an old episode of Only Fools and Horses or something equally comfortable and inviting. Classic British comedy. Breaks had one fall to tie this up, but Boscik wrestled a beautiful defensive fall to seal his victory (including a fantastic headbutt attack to ice it), and while the bout was only "very good" as opposed to great, I love sports inspired booking where the champ has an off day without any screwjob bullshit. He didn't suffer the indignity of a straight falls loss as he did against Saint in the lead-up to the title match, but he was well beaten on the night, which would have at least gotten Boscik one more match to prove he deserved a title shot. Good stuff.

Gilbert Cesca vs. Cheri Bibi I'm guessing that Cheri Bibi is based on character created by Gaston Leroux (of Phantom of the Opera fame.) He was a real bruiser similar to a slimmer, more mobile Mal Kirk. As you can imagine, this was a continuous beat down by Bibi on the smaller Cesca w/ Gesca retaliating to Bibi's tactics with fierce gusto. An age old match type, but one that can really drag if the guy working on top isn't that compelling or the selling isn't so brilliant. Gesca tried to be a live wire here, and even choked Bibi out with a towel before brawling with him on the outside, but none of it really held my attention.

Savage is a favourite of many and has always been popular despite the relative lack of discourse surrounding his matches. He's never really been picked apart the way a Rude or Dibiase has, I assume because he's generally well-liked. I don't know where I would rank him personally but he was the first wrestler I was drawn to and if I went on a binge watch I might be high on him. I don't know why I always feel the need to defend the original poll, but there is nothing about those placings that didn't make sense at the time. Yeah, it would have been nice if there had been higher votes for luchadores, but it's not like we've made great strides in that area over the past ten years. And it's actually unfortunate that a great worker like Ozaki won't rate as highly this time. No list is perfect.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 4 Tony St. Clair vs. Rollerball Rocco (Porthmadog, taped 1988) Two aging vets make a decent fist of having a hard hitting bout. We even got a bit of colour from both guys. Rocco was doing some sort of a coal miner's glove gimmick at this point, and being in Wales and all, it's a really fucking big coal miner's glove. Actually, I don't know what sort of glove it was -- it was a big black glove with metal studs. Rocco used it as a foreign object around this time which had a real WWF feel to it. Kudos to him for flying the flag in how the British style needed to catch up with the American product, but it's far from the Euro style I love. I assume St. Clair cribbing the Doomsday Device was due to crossing paths with Animal or Hawk at some point, but it was a nice string to his veteran bow. Rollerball Rocco vs. Tony St. Clair (Corwen, taped 4/7/90) St. Clair with the mullet. Rocco was just about finished at this point and was breaking down physically, but I've got to say St. Clair is quickly moving up my ranks of guys who kept the flame alive post-ITV. Giant Haystacks vs. Drew McDonald (Pontardawe, taped 4/4/89) Drew McDonald is one of many who have died recently, but this was actually my first time to see him. He looked like a solid performer, but he wasn't going to get much rub against Haystacks. Hopefully there are better matches to come. John Quinn vs. Wayne Bridges (Denbigh, taped 1987) I didn't give this much chance of living up to their Joint Promotions spectacle, but it was actually really good. It was a rounds match and joined frustratingly late, but Quinn deserves a knighthood for what he was able to get out of Bridges. Really underrated worker John Quin -- underrated in the sense that most people don't have a clue who he is, but he cut out a career in the 80s as good as any fringe guy in other promotions. Kung Fu vs. Kid McCoy (Denbigh, taped 2/15/89) By and large, I think the Reslo footage helps Kung Fu's case as being a decent worker; certainly moreso if you only watch his World of Sport stuff, but this wasn't really given enough time to mean anything. Gary Clwyd vs. Tony Stewart (Merthyr, taped 3/29/90) Hey, Reslo had boy wrestling too! This was better than I expected, but the guy I thought was the better worker did the job. Boo!

Steve Grey vs. Zoltan Boscik (9/26/74) This was a one fall bout from when Grey was still an up-and-comer and Boscik was a blue eye. Obviously it didn't have the chemistry of their later bouts, which were sensational at times, but it was a solid contest. My main takeaway from it was that Grey wasn't anywhere near as well established as thought in the famous Myers match. It's hard to say whether that Myers match made Grey, but '75 was definitely his breakthrough year. Steve Grey vs. Zoltan Boscik (9/11/84) Almost 10 years to the day, Boscik was a whole lot stockier and not on TV that often, but he hooked up with Grey to produce a rollicking one fall contest that came pretty close to recapturing the lightning in the bottle from their early feud. I love pissed up Grey more than any pissed off babyface I can think of, but Boscik didn't really cross the line here; it was more of a competitive testiness and I loved every exchange.

Jones was supremely athletic when he was younger. Even when he gained weight, he was still only a mid-heavyweight and wrestled a hard hitting style. The only thing he really did methodically was take apart guys he had no time for.

I don't think it matters that Jones and Rocco influenced the Stampede style for this topic. All that means is that they indirectly raised the work in the WWF. Bret gave a long, rambling reply that touched on more than just the topic at hand. He was more or less saying that Dynamite Kid was better than Flair in the period he worked Stampede. Since he's arguing that DK ushered in a new style of wrestling, it's fair to say that it wasn't exactly new. Regal makes the same point all the time about the DK/TM matches. I'm sure Rocco and Jones weren't the first ones to up the workrate, either, but in this case they specifically made DK what he was. And yes, this only relates to the WWF indirectly but it was part of the same answer.

Every story Flair tells in that podcast is Flair cutting a promo. Bret playing along with it is weird, but they were seldom on the same page for the entire hour. Bret is dour and serious, but closer to the truth, while Flair just riffs and spouts crap all the time. Does anybody really believe his Lloyd's of London story for example? The fish get bigger every time he tells that story.

I don't think Bret is unaware of any of the guys who worked in the WWF during the time he was there. I think Bret has an over-inflated view of himself and everyone who came out of Calgary, but at the same time it's understandable why he'd feel the way he does because the workrate a Steamboat provided is not the same as the Calgary guys. I do think he misrepresented the style of Harley Race, who clearly wasn't in the Dory Funk Jr mold, but I don't think it changes his overall point.

It astounds me that you believed anything Flair said in that 60 minute podcast.

None of the workers mentioned in this thread did 57 suplex variations. Marty Jones and Rocco invented the workrate style Bret is talking about. Bret is simply unaware of it because he doesn't know when Dynamite was 16 years old he was watching those guys tear it up.