ohtani's jacket

The promotion that the television comes from is I believe the Fédération française de catch professionnel (FFCP) promoted by Roger Delaporte and filmed predominantly at the Élysée Montmartre in Paris. There is no date on Cesca/Catanzaro, but presumably it's from the FFCP. The dates used in this thread are TV air dates and may not be reliable. The spelling of the wrestlers' names is also questionable at times.

I've just got to say that Tokyo Sports is a tabloid newspaper with a notorious reputation. It's often said the only thing credible about Tokyo Sports is the cover date.

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. Dory's twitter (and the email handle he has used for decades) is https://twitter.com/fuanku as he's taking the katakana extension literally, but your explanation and GOTNW's are correct. Your Japanese is better than mine... It's kind of interesting that he romanises it as "fua" but that's awfully difficult for people to pronounce.

I don't think he was the wrestler of the year, but Pete Roberts was really great in 1985.

Chigusa Nagayo had the second hair match with Dump, the awesome Leilani Kai bout, at least one great Crush Girls tag against the Jumping Bomb Angels, and some good stuff in the ongoing Omori and Asuka rivalries.

Lynch has a copy. I don't think it's been uploaded yet.

The thing I remember most is when you'd rent a tape that was maybe Memphis or Mid South or something and be disappointed because it wasn't like the WWF. The folly of youth.

British wrestling had a strong following among middle aged women as well as older pensioners. I remember Mick McManus cracking a few jokes about the ladies admiring Johnny Kwango's skimpy trunks, and Walton would always go on about the wrestlers' looks.

There used to be an Adrian Street/Mick McMichael WoS match on YouTube but it looks as though it's gone. I have one other Street match from that era, which I guess I can rip if anyone is interested.

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.