ohtani's jacket

They did work in Dallas. There's just no record of them doing so after they sold the Amarillo territory. Terry wrestled Fritz at Texas Stadium in 1976, for example.

http://www.infinitecore.ca/superstar/index.php?threadid=563

I am the wrong guy to ask as I only dabble in WWE, but from that list Christian is the only one I would be bothered watching. I'd sooner watch Piper than the other three. Jericho is one of my least favourite workers.

I also thought Piper's WWF work was a revelation. I don't think he's a great worker, but he was consistently good throughout the 80s. I would put him at the same level as a guy like Cien Caras.

I thought it was good, but very much a houseshow match. I will probably write about it soon.

So, I made my way through Rey's 2006. The Henry matches were pretty good. I thought Rey's selling was great and Henry did an excellent job working from on top, but there were a lot of cookie cutter big man/little man spots that bugged me. I really like Orton as a Rey Mysterio opponent. He's such a prick towards Rey. A lot of guys are a prick towards Rey, but Orton seemed to take real delight in it. If he wasn't such a hammy actor, I'd rather that April match as one of Mysterio's best in the WWE. JBL also brought tremendous intensity to his feud with Mysterio. I don't think they delivered a classic, but the dynamic was great. Not sure if it was a great booking decision at the time, but for my own purposes they were matches I enjoyed. The Angle matches from '06 were fine. Angle pops up way too quickly on offensive switches, but aside from that I love his intensity and relentless offence. He's Scott Steiner with an Olympic medal, but I don't give a shit. There are times when he just kills Rey on offence. He's a machine like Keith Haward. The Sabu match was the worst thing I've seen in ages. I ought to have prefaced that by saying I haven't watched much wrestling lately, but it was absolutely terrible. The Chavo falls count anywhere match wasn't great either, but at least they filmed it in a novel way. I enjoyed the Finlay matches, though not as much as the JBL/Orton dynamic. For some reason, the most famous Finlay match isn't online, which is a shame as I always considered that a top five Rey-in-the-WWE bout. Anyway, a pretty good year for Rey. I like him a lot as a worker, though he's a bit samey in terms of how he's booked. I wonder if he had more small guy vs. small guy bouts like the Noble one that I'm overlooking. I don't really buy him as a high volume great match guy (he has the same number of great matches as anyone else, imo), but he's a consistently good television worker. The best ever? I dunno. I like Tully's studio work better and Steve Grey is probably my pick but then again he was on TV as many times per year as Mysterio was in a single month, so there's an over-exposure issue for sure. Rey's good, though. Don't mean to ruffle any feathers.

I'm specifically referring to "I do believe that Hulkamania will live forever," though now I do a google search I see it's a much discussed thing.

That Satanico/Chicana match from '83 was completely new. I'm looking at Lynch's match list now and I can't find either of the last two Casas matches I reviewed. It seems he has a different source for some of the TV.

Negro Casas/Emilio Charles Jr./Mano Negra vs. El Brazo/Ultimo Dragon/Oro, CMLL 3/19/93 Negro Casas could do no wrong at this point. It never really occurred to me that 1993 might be the best year of his career. It was such a dark time for the company that you tend to ignore everything that happened, but in terms of physical prime coinciding with in-ring ability, the period from when he entered the company in 1992 through to an as yet undefined point in 1993 represents the best I've seen from Casas. One glance at the team sheets should reveal whom he was feuding with here. At first you're like, "I don't want to see Casas feuding with some overrated 90s junior who nobody likes anymore," and then you realise that Ultimo wasn't that bad in Mexico (certainly not by tecnico standards) and that they actually had pretty good chemistry together. It's not as cool a follow-up feud to Dandy vs. Casas as Dandy/Bestia, which was a match-up of two evenly matched guys who brought a level of physicality to their matches similar to the Regal/Benoit/Finlay triumvirate, but it works so much better than you'd expect it to on paper. I'm slowly accepting it as one of Casas' career best feuds, even if it seems a bit unluchalike that a non straight lucha match-up would rank so highly. But enough apologising; Casas abused poor Ultimo in this match with that kicking game I've talked so much about. I find Casas' kicking game fascinating. I'm not sure it's all that good really, but the fact that he uses it so much against a striker like Ultimo is a great piece of character work/psychology. It's part gamesmanship, part arrogance. It's a straight taunt -- goading Ultimo by saying "I can match your strengths and pick apart your game plan" -- but at the same time he gets his fingers burnt (or perhaps more aptly his toes) by getting caught up in these offensive storms where Ultimo starts launching Street Fighter combos at him. Pissed off Ultimo is not really a known characteristic of Ultimo Dragon in so far as people have broken down the characteristics of El Ultimo Dragon, but Casas pushes those buttons. Casas was straddling the whole "rudo who's so popular he gets cheered like a tecnico" thing at Arena Mexico while still acting like a complete prick. I don't know who Casas was addressing when he boxed the ropes in this match (it may have been the tecnico ref), but it was divine. Absolutely divine. Has anyone ever seen a guy box the ropes like that before? And that's just some riff Casas was messing around. He took things too far in this bout by repeatedly stomping at Ultimo's head while Charles and Negra held him in a martyr-like pose, and the big tecnico ref finally called him out for excessive rudoism, but Casas didn't give a shit and retaliated with some of the coolest mask ripping I've seen. Do you know how hard it is to make mask ripping seem cool? Not only did he (mercifully) rip the thing with a single tug; he delivered a tailor made Matt D GIF in the process. You could feel the Ultimo comeback coming like the wind changing before a storm and the birds and animals acting all freaked, but that's pro-wrestling 101: setup and payoff. Ultimo was bleeding, which is pretty rare for him, and he gave Casas a hiding. I've seen a lot of the spots before in other Casas vs. Ultimo matches, but it's still cool whenever Ultimo stops being courteous and busts out the high end Japanese offence that Casas doesn't have a shit show of blocking. I love the short arm clothesline spot they do. That was the death blow right here. The other guys were secondary to the Casas/Ultimo fury, though Emilio did bust out a balls-to-the-wall tope on El Brazo. He was surprisingly subdued otherwise. Negra wasn't really good during this run until he dropped the hood, and it wasn't the type of match where Oro was going to shine. But you can still watch this to track Casas and watch an all-time great at his absolute peak.

How come nobody ever holds Wrestlemania VI against Jesse? That was a sell out moment if ever there was one.

Honey Boy Zimba vs. Ray Thunder (9/26/78) Bit of a nothing clip with Zimba getting the win against the run of play. Bronco Wells vs. Ed Wensor (3/8/78) Despite this being a catchweight contest, it was still a battle between fatties. Pretty good bout for a match between two unheralded types. Nothing mind blowing, but a much better watch than I would have anticipated. Mike Marino vs. Sandy Scott (10/4/77) This was a typical Joint heel turn with Scott suddenly acting out of character and using all sorts of underhanded tactics. I don't know if there was a kayfabe explanation given in the magazines or in the programs sold at the halls, but there was never any motivation given on television. Walton would simply start lamenting that wrestler X hadn't been the wrestler we know of late and how much of a shame it was because X could be such a good wrestler if he simply followed the rules. Marino never had much time for bullshit and didn't put up with Scott's shit. Peter Wilson vs. Gary Wensor (10/4/77) This was miles better than Wilson's 80s work. How many miles better? I dunno, maybe the distance from the earth to the sun. From memory, this was both men's television debuts and they were keen to impress with a well worked bout. Even Walton was into it, and he'd call a spade a spade if he didn't think a wrestler's television debut was up to scratch. This Wilson had the potential to be a decent worker. I wonder what happened. Mike Bennett vs. Alan Dennison (4/23/79) Wow, this was much better than your typical Dennison bout. The grappling was actually really compelling and Bennett put in an outstanding performance for his age and experience level. I really need to watch more Mike Bennett. Unfortunately, the latter half of the match was clipped. Still a good bout, mind. Brian Maxine vs. Ray Thunder (2/28/79) Maxine as a babyface is one of the worst turns ever. Who the hell wanted to see Maxine as a face? It was just wrong on so many levels. Johnny Czeslaw vs. Ray Thunder (4/24/79) This was Czeslaw's last appearance on TV and he didn't look good. Walton tried to paint it as though he was off-colour or having a bad day, but knowing what we do about his health, it's possible that he wasn't in the best of shape. Thunder looked awful here, which I'd attribute to Czeslaw not being able to make him look good. Billy Torontos vs. Black Jack Mulligan (1/9/79) Mulligan was such a pro. He never failed to make his opponent look a million bucks even a comedy worker like Torontos. I think he's by far the biggest and best bumper in World of Sport history and possibly ahead of the times with the bumps he took. Nothing bout, but I have a ton of respect for Mulligan. John Naylor vs. Leon Fortuna (4/17/75) This was an exciting bout mostly because the wrestlers got excited and kept fighting on the ropes. It was the final of a World of Sport Trophy tournament and the winner had the trophy presented to him by none other than Walton himself, who made a rare on screen appearance. Ridiculously smooth. Walton was the man. I wish we knew more about the "other" side of Walton -- the smoking, the drinking, the DJ'ing and soft porn producing. John Naylor vs. Johnny England (1/31/79) This was decent enough, I suppose. Late 70s Johnny England reminds me of Sid Vicious or some other punk rocker. He comes across a right little shit. John Cox vs. Ivan Penzecoff (11/7/74) Not sure if I've seen this before or why it was on the disc since it doesn't seem that I ordered it, but this was pretty good up until the finish. Cox was a big boy. Walton claims he was already 17 stone at age 18. Later on, he'd become a grizzled, hard as fuck veteran, but he was a young guy here and pretty much a huge slab for Penzecoff to work with. Instead of putting over the other guy as is often the case with Penzecoff playing the foil, he got to concentrate on his own shtick and gave an entertaining performance. The finish was a lousy DQ -- a finish that always seemed to happen when Colbeck was reffing -- but I enjoyed the majority of this bout.

Albert Falaux/Bob Elandon vs. Rene Cabellec/Gilbert Puydebat This was a bit confusing at times. It wasn't clear whether Elandon was a heel or simply prone to losing his cool. He'd start using inside moves on his opponents, and it seemed like there was going to be a problem between him and Falaux, but nothing came of it. 60s matches have really long opening falls. That ensures you get plenty of action, but it also makes the matches somewhat rhythmless, making it hard to get sucked into the bout. French babyfaces are also hard to get a grip on. They have excellent technique, but the lack of context makes them seem bland. Even the ones we have an increasing amount of footage of such as Chemoul and Cesca have failed to make an impression on me. I do love the style, though.

Bob ALPRA has a blog connected to his channel. There are some results in English, but nothing comprehensive.

The post war economic boom meant there was a growing population. The companies had a much larger workforce and there were a higher number of students than there are today. I don't know if rugby itself was more popular, but with jobs for life and so on, there was more loyalty to your company. These days you get a couple of thousand employees from each side going to games where in the past you'd get tens of thousands. The max at university games these days is probably 40,000. Rugby in Japan is this weird beast where there's few real fans who follow say a high school prospect through to the pros. It's fragmented between high school, uni and company teams. Anyway, if Wales knock the Wallabies out in the pool stages I will celebrate like my endless drunken repeats of Ireland's call on YouTube when they beat Australia at Eden Park.

Rugby was a lot more popular in the 70s and 80s, particularly at university level. They used to draw upwards of 70,000 to the big university matches. But then football took off and rugby decreased in popularity. Company rugby has always been semi-pro, as the corporations would employ a guy to play rugby and give him a day job in the company. There were foreign guys over here making coin before professionalism too, though nothing like the money that's thrown around these days. The companies don't make any profit from rugby. The entire thing is based on an archaic post-war law that insisted company's have sports teams and promote worker health, etc. I don't know if Hara jumping to pro-wrestling was a big story, but given that both rugby and erestling had a higher profile at the time than they do now, it was probably in the news.

Most of the info is in French. You kind of have to piece it together.

On a Williams scale of 1-10, this thread is about a 1. Honestly, I think the Kawada picture and those three initials are like a red rag to a bull right now.

The Sight and Sound voters know what's canon and which films were on previous lists. The previous results are highly influential. Regardless, it sounds as though you're referring to sincerity rather than accuracy. I can't remember where I voted for Jumbo last time. I think it was top 10, maybe even top 5. I'm moved on from Jumbo since then and would probably drop him down into the top 30 somewhere if I were to vote. If I were being disingenuous it would be closer to top 50, but I don't think dropping him down 20 places is insincere. I don't find him relevant at this point in time and haven't overly enjoyed the last few matches I watched. Just sticking with Japanese male wrestlers, I think Yoshiaki Fujiwara is better in every single way. I would have a hard time separating Jumbo and Fujinami these days. Tamura was a superior athlete and wrestler. Misawa was more of a genius. Hashimoto is more soul stirring. Tenryu I've never really gotten into the way others have, but Choshu grew on me a lot with the 80s sets. Jumbo's getting bumped down anyway you look at it. I really only like '89-91 Jumbo these days.

How boring is this? Shows no forward thinking since 2006. Is the point of GWE to be accurate or novel? How about challenging assumptions? From my experience, getting involved in debates over this type of thing doesn't go anywhere good. But I feel the need to defend Parv here. He challenged the assumptions about Dory at this board. He has challenged assumptions about Flair at this board. He has even challenged his own assumptions about the U.S. indy guys. He's not someone I think we can accuse of digging his head in the sand when he thinks he is right about something. Also, I'd be interested in reading a real answer to the question he posed. An original, creative, thought provoking list is better than an accurate list. An accurate list implies that there is an established cannon and a hierarchy and order that should be followed. I would rather see a list that's eclectic and exciting and reflects the depth and breadth of people's viewing experience. The beauty of the first list was that it was a capsule of what people from different various different sites thought at the time; an amalgamation, or really culmination, of the thinking at that time. Hopefully, the next list will be too, but in order for it to be progressive, and to reflect how thinking has changed in the past decade, there needs to be more discourse. That idea that Tenryu is better than Jumbo is a great idea; well worth exploring and discussing, and indeed having a spirited debate about. The fact that it doesn't fit into some sort of Sight and Sound concept and is more an idea from one of those alternative lists that are put out to prove how stodgy and unoriginal S&S is, doesn't make it any less invigorating of a topic idea. It may not end up being accurate, but it's a whole lot more interesting than having a predetermined one and two.

How boring is this? Shows no forward thinking since 2006. Is the point of GWE to be accurate or novel? How about challenging assumptions?

How boring is this? Shows no forward thinking since 2006.

Must have missed that when it was uploaded. Couderc getting into fights with people never gets old. Neither does Lassartesse dropping the knee.

Something interesting I saw in the record store today:

The last record Cubs has of Casas and Dandy working together is in 2007. They worked against other a bit in IWRG. Apparently, they had a title match at an IWRG taping in 2003.