ohtani's jacket

To your point, I wouldn't say Fuerza is far off being a Buddy Rogers/Ric Flair type, which would differentiate him from the Arn Andersons of Mexico, except that he never really rose to the level of a Rogers or Flair, which would make him more like a Buddy Rose, I suppose. That said, I think it's important to remember that in American wrestling a lot of the skills a Fuerza shows are limited to house show matches where they work a lighter style. Lucha matches tend to be basically taped house shows so you get to see a lot more variety from luchadores. With Cota, we got those two matches against Rocca, but didn't get a full grasp of his gimmick and the different costumes he wore to the ring, so I'll concede that point. I do feel, however, that there is a dividing line between Porky and other workers where you know that with Porky it's going to be a comedy match and with other workers you're not sure what they'll give you.

This was a match that originally turned me off Mistico, Ultimo Guerrero, or anything to do with the modern style of lucha libre. Watching it 19 years later and within the context of the five years that preceded it, it's not great but it's not a turnoff anymore. Booking-wise, they do their best to put Mistico over Ultimo without making Ultimo look bad. Work-wise, they're trying to bring the excitement the same way WWE workers do. They probably could have had a more traditional match in Guadalajara or some other territory, but for Arena Mexico purposes they delivered they hit the high notes and delivered the talking points that were required. That is far, far away from a MOTYC, however, and this match has no business in any such conversations.

Looking for signature matches from Mexican workers has always been tough due to the fact that they don't work as many singles matches as other wrestlers and the singles matches they do work are often on house shows. There are details we can quibble on. I think Bestia vs. Sevilla is a signature Bestia match, for example, but not enough people sing its praises for it to be considered a truly classic match. My rule of thumb for lucha tends to be that from XX to XX how many times did I see worker XYZ have a good performance? Yes, it means watching every trios match that's available, but this isn't All Japan tape collecting. Anyway, let's move onto the next category: Entertainers Mocho Cota, Fuerza Guerrera, Brazo de Plata, Jerry Estrada, La Parka Charismatic rudos who incorporated a lot of comedy and zany antics into their performances. Quite athletic as well, maybe because they needed to remind the fans that they were for real and not just pure comedians. Equally comfortable leading a team or in a backup role. Parka and Porky both spent most of their career as tecnicos, but with them I see it as their charisma engulfing the rest of their work until they were more charisma than wrestler. This is an interesting category as I feel that a lot of the workers from the previous category also incorporate comedy spots into their matches. It's almost a prerequisite of being a luchador as comedy bouts are a staple form of lucha libre and a common way to take a night off. That's not to say that the workers you chose didn't excel at comedy or being entertaining but rather that it was part of their bag of tricks. Cota I don't feel comfortable putting in this category since the two best matches we have of his are titles matches. Fuerza was flamboyant and hugely charismatic but also a tremendous foil. He was over the top but at the end of the day his role was to carry Pena creations like Octagon and Volador. Estrada could work just about any style. The results depended on how sober he was. Porky and Parka I complete agree with as they had full on routines. You could probably include a number of exoticos in this category. I would separate it as full comedy vs Fuerza/Psicosis style comedy spots like falling off the apron.

I remember there being quite a bit of buzz around this match when it happened. It's kind of surreal seeing Jannetty in the WWE in 2005. He was 45 years old when he wrestled this match and looked every bit his age, but still managed to put on a fantastic showing against Angle. This was the second Angle match I've enjoyed from 2005 after he went off the boil a bit in 2004. He's a guy who can take a flimsy premise like teaching Shawn Michaels to tap by submitting Marty Jannetty and make it seem utterly convincing. I also appreciate the way he works spots into his matches that the crowd have no interest in, but ignores the need to pander to the crowd and keeps working his match. Phenomenal intensity. People were excited for other Jannetty matchups, but he went and blew it. I'm sure his stint would have fizzled out one way or another, but this was a heck of a one night performance.

This was billed as a "Pick Your Poison" match where Bischoff let Batista choose an opponent for Triple H. Apparently, Triple H had never beaten Benoit before in a one-on-one match, and this was fitting the one year anniversary of Benoit's big moment at WrestleMania XX. Long story short, Triple H gets his win over Benoit but it takes a distraction by Flair and a low blow to get the pinfall. Benoit squeezes in a ton of offense before jobbing, including 10 German suplexes. Not their best match together, but a decent TV bout. Triple H is in full Lemmy mode with his facial hair. I believe he chose Kane as Batista's opponent, which is poison for everyone.

Well, we don't really know what other great matches a lot of these workers had. If we didn't happen to have MS-1 vs. Chicana on tape, we might not even consider him a great worker. Maybe he'd be viewed on the level of Masakre. So that skewers things a bit. Then it becomes a question of a lack of charisma or ability vs a Satancio or a Pirata, and I don't see it. I personally think Emilio and Bestia were every bit as charismatic as Satanico and Pirata. In my mind, there are other factors involved such as booking and timing., physical decline, etc. It's lucha -- it's not like these guys are getting only program after another leading to a singles match. They heat guys up then they drop them back down the card again. So it's not really fair to say they couldn't have great singles match after great singles match. Even Satanico and Casas were moved down the card. Now if we're talking about potential, each of those guys got a chance to shine in at least one high level feud and they produced. They're a step above the average rudo. In fact, they're some of the best rudos of all-time, work-wise, and they excel in multiple genres of lucha, for want of a better word, so I tend to have a high opinion of them. I get that there is a cap on what they achieved, but if I look at these guys closely, I would say that their biggest weakness would be that it would be hard for me to see them having successful tecnico runs.

I guess I should mention eating out. Unless you want to live off convenience store or supermarket food, you'll want to eat out at some point. There are a lot of Western style restaurants that are easier to order at and Japanese chains where you can point at a picture or whatnot, but eating at an authentic restaurant can be a little challenging. There are certain parts of Tokyo that are more tourist friendly than others. If there is a particular type of food you want to eat, I would do some research about the best place to eat it.

They stopped selling Pasmo and Suica cards due to the semiconductor shortage, though I believe they still have some available for tourists. Almost everybody uses Pasmo and Suica on their phone these days. If you need to find train information, I recommend using https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/?sub_lang=nosub or https://www.hyperdia.com/en/ When people visit Tokyo, they usually stick to the easiest routes but residents always go for the fastest route which often involve multiple transfers. If you're on a crowded train and you are standing in front of the door, your best option is to step off the train at each stop and stand to the side. Let the masses get off and then board the train again. I made this mistake on my very first trip to Japan in 2004 and was pushed off the train onto the platform. The price of the Japan Rail Pass went up in October. It was a pretty hefty price increase -- https://www.japan-guide.com/news/japan-rail-pass-cost-increase.html That said, shinkansen tickets aren't cheap either, so you really need to calculate what the best option is. Japan is becoming less of a cash society. People are increasingly using their phones to pay for everything. I often get crap from my co-workers for relying on cash too often. Don't worry about the language barrier so much. Just wing it.

Also, let's not forget that Inoki drew huge ratings doing faux-MMA matches in the 70s.

New Japan's TV ratings began to fall in the second half of 1983 and fell below All Japan in October of 1985. The broadcasting contract they had with TV Asahi at the time was from April '84 to March '86. In October of '86, TV Asahi replaced New Japan on Fridays with Music Station, a Japanese version of Top of the Pops that is still running to this day. New Japan switched to Mondays, however TV ratings continued to fall below 10%. TV Asahi tried to do something desperate by combining pro-wrestling with variety TV. In April of '87, they launched the new variety show format combining studio segments with broadcasts of the matches, using comedians and such. Ratings fell below 6% and that was the death knell for New Japan being broadcast during prime time. As with all things, it was a combination of factors. New Japan's boom peaked in '82 and there was a steady decline from thereon out, mostly because of the talent they lost. Once they lost the Friday 8pm slot, they lost a chunk of viewers who didn't follow them to the Monday and Tuesday timeslots, and then the new variety show format was a disaster. The matches stopped being broadcast live and by the end of the Showa era in '89 there was no wrestling being broadcast in primetime on Japanese TV. I think the worst you can say about the UWF guys is that they didn't boost the ratings and salvage the time slot. However, I don't think you can say that they were responsible for the huge ratings drop. That started when the whole Inoki scandal broke and everyone quit.

This was a sprint compared to their usual matches, but even a sprint is worth watching between these two rivals. More hard-hitting action between the indies' best matchup.

If you had told me in 2005 that Tenzan and Kojima had a 60 minute singles match and that 20 years later I'd be into it from start to finish, my reaction would have been Bwahahahaha... but here we are. It's 2005 and their time is now. Yeah, it's repetitive. Yes, they go to the well once too often. But it's Tenzan and Kojima wrestling 60 minutes. Did you ever think you'd see that? FWIW, I think the finish was a work. If you're legit collapsed, I don't think you're flicking your hair into place. Is this a great bout? Does it matter? Tenzan and Kojima went 60 minutes. Let that sink in for a while.

I've loved this matchup on the indies, but I've lost track of how many promotions they've worked in. This was the mainstream version of their match. The fact that they can go 30 minutes plus is no surprise to anyone who has followed them in the indies, but where they exceed here is in creating the sports entertainment drama that has Mike Tenay and Don West gushing. This is laid out exceptionally well and is an engrossing Iron Man bout. This may be second only to Rude/Steamboat in terms of mainstream Iron Man bouts.

This was criminally short given the workers involved. Did they really think we didn't want another 10 minutes of this? Mind you, with the editing fuckery it may have actually been 10 minutes longer than it appeared. There's not a single one-on-one matchup in this match that isn't intriguing and what they do give us is good stuff. Shocker still has his face paint on. I really need to unpack that mystery.

I'm gonna break my thoughts down by category one at a time. Mechanics (listed somewhat chronologically) MS-1, Espanto Jr., Hombre Bala, Rambo, Emilio Charles Jr., Bestia Salvaje, Pierrothito Smooth, bumping bruisers with big grins. Generally maskless, tended who have more personality than starpower. Can captain a team, but generally more natural as the #2 or #3 in a match. Often more workmanlike than their talents necessitate, and as such they tend to be better in 3v3 matches than 1v1s. A lot of these workers ended up in longtime rivalries with tecnicos who were much bigger stars (Espanto vs Santo for instance), perhaps because their inring ability and general selflessness made for a great pairing with guys who actually did need to be the center of attention all the time. Once a fairly common type of worker, but now not as much. Maybe the mechanics all have masks now and expressive faces is no longer an important feature for this group. I like where you're going with this category, but to me a mechanic implies someone who is technically proficient but lacking in charisma. A lot of the names you mentioned were capable of being fabulous performers. Anyone of those guys could have carried a feud if given that spot, so I prefer to view them as perfect foils. There are two skills that are crucial for this type of worker (aside from carrying a big feud), and those are can you add to a trios match as a secondary guy and do you have a repertoire of spots that can elevate a trios match if you have limited ring time. To me, trios matches that have a single throughline (the main beef) are infinitely inferior to trios matches where the secondary workers create mini-beefs that complement the main storyline. Great rudos are capable of picking on a guy to add to the heat or doing something spectacular during their spot to keep driving the momentum forward. Given that 90% of trios matches end up being matches featuring randomly thrown together workers instead of matches building to a singles bout, bringing it every night and being the glue of a trios match become important for workers in this category. I don't know if you intended this to be the classic rudo role, but it's arguably the most important role in lucha.

Where would you put Satanico, Santo, Casas and Pirate Morgan?

Why is the grouping part in spoilers? That's a fascinating post. I'd like to discuss it elsewhere outside of this thread. In the Microscope maybe?

This was much better than I expected. It was a title match for the NWA World Middleweight Championship, and while it was far from a traditional title match, I appreciated the measured approach they took to the opening fall and the amount of selling Mistico did. They managed to work a compelling match despite the fact that workrate and elaborate spots had replaced matwork and submission teases as the main focus of a lucha title match. We tend to think of modern workers as not slowing down to sell and let a match breathe, but they're not helped by the television editors who are just as jumpy as the workers. I'm sure if this was edited with a slower rhythm that people wouldn't have been so down on the state of modern lucha at the time.

This was Jamie Noble's debut in ROH. There's a strong anti-Smackdown vibe among both the crowd and the commentary. It was a bit annoying, to be honest. It's not as though the ROH product is that much better than Smackdown. It's been a while since I've seen a ROH match that was as good as that Angle vs. Cena match. Apparently, Gibson would be back in the WWE before the year was out, so yeah. It's been a minute since I've seen Spanky. This was perfectly good North American junior heavyweight wrestling. There was a void for this type of wrestling in the North American market in 2005, but it seems like ROH didn't want to pigeonhole anyone by weight class.

Not what I'd consider a wrestling match. Just a bunch of screwing around outside the ring. I did like the rolling small package spot, though. Ending it in the ring was stupid, I thought. What's the point of falls counting anywhere if you finish the match in the ring?

Vic Christy vs Great Togo (NWA Los Angeles, 08/27/1951) This was a clip of the last five minutes. Togo remains my favorite of the Japanese heels. Duke Keomuka vs Blackie Guzman (Southwest Sports, 1952) This was already uploaded with a better film transfer. Cowboy Karlson & Billy Varga vs Duke Keomuka & Wild Red Berry NO SOUND (Southwest Sports, 1952) Probably one for the completists as there's no sound. I haven't gotten a firm grasp on 50s Texas wrestling yet but there wasn't anything that stood out that was different from the other territories.

One more thing, if either of you have hay fever, April is still pollen allergy season in Japan.

I don't know how English friendly it is but most tickets are bought at convenience stores.

Bud Curtis vs Alex Kasaboski (NWA Los Angeles, 01/29/1951) This was a fun scrap. Once the "Hoosier Hotshot" Bud Curtis got going it was exciting stuff. I love how Jack Little calls a snapmare like it's the most thrilling move ever invented. Andre Drapp vs The Bushman (NWA Los Angeles, 01/29/1951) Andre Drapp looked fantastic in this match. Jack Little says that promoter Johnny Doyle has been touting Drapp was a future world champion. Makes me wonder how successful Drapp could have been if he'd remained in the States. He certainly looked like world champ material. The Bushman is an interesting cat. Little says that he comes from some Northern Amazon tribe where the men wear their hair in afros to represent the rays of the sun. Bushman used to do an Elephant Boy gimmick. There's a great picture of him atop an actual elephant: The Bushman had a strong Inca Peruano vibe to me, though not as technically polished. Really good bout. Drapp was fabulous.

I am slowly learning that there's more to Jaime Noble than Rey Mysterio matches. This was a fun match between two evenly matched guys. I'm already on record as saying I prefer workrate Homicide to brawler Homicide, and Noble is an excellent opponent for Homicide in that respect. Unfortunately, the match gets interrupted by CM Punk, but that leads to a memorable "backstage" scene where Homicide beats Punk up while he's straddled on a bucking bronco ride then turns the machine on. Punk goes flying everywhere. That would have been a great spot in a Memphis match or one of Black Terry's Arena Naucalpan brawls.