ohtani's jacket

I'd actually seen a couple of these before (this shit happens.) Let's compare and see what I wrote a few years ago: Nice change of tune there!

A few oversights before I continue: Pat Patton vs. Johnny England (4/23/79) Patton's 70s hair was immense. He looked like the lead singer of Boston, Brad Delp. It took me a while to warm to Johnny England because he wasn't the most naturally gifted wrestler, but what a great character. An obnoxious little bodybuilding brat with a punk rock edge to him and a knack for getting under people's skins. We didn't see the entire match here, but already there was a chemistry between the workers and you could see why they'd go on to have such a good match in 1981. John Quinn/Yasu Fuji vs. Steve Veidor/Lee Bronson (5/13/80) This was a simple but effective tag match. It wasn't great or anything, but a damn sight better than those Big Daddy matches. The brief Quinn vs. Veidor exchanges had me imagining an alternate reality where Veidor and Quinn feuded for the World's Heavyweight title, but this was actually Veidor's last appearance on television. Walton tried to fob Quinn off as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, which made me wonder whether if even Kent was clueless about this fake belt of Arion's. Wayne Bridges got on the house mic at the end and cut a passionate promo stating that Quinn had taken three things from his: his belt, his pride, and his blood. He told Quinn he had 90 days to defend the title and to pick the day. Quinn wanted to go there and then and Bridges had to be held back. Simple but effective stuff. Now for one last dig into 1983... Vic Faulkner vs. Mick McMichael (8/3/83) Typical Faulkner vs. McMichael bout. It took them a while to warm up but by the end they were cracking out the comedy. Walton kept saying it was impossible not to enjoy a Faulkner vs. McMichael bout. I don't know about that Kent. I will say that while the spots weren't ad-libbed in the slightest, the speed at which they were able to call them was impressive to watch. My problem is that I don't find McMichael that funny, but hey, comedy and humour is a personal thing. Alan Dennison vs. Black Jack Mulligan (8/3/83) These two always had good matches together. I'm not sure if it was because they were friends or because Mulligan always seemed to target Dennison's arms and bump big for his strength spots, but they had about as good a series as I can imagine from a run of extended squashes. Dennison always seemed to give him that little bit more. A few extra rounds, a bit more offense than usual, no bullshit comedy designed to embarrass his opponent. Quite different from a lot of the two fall maulings Mulligan received. Jim Breaks vs. Grasshopper (3/23/83) For what it's worth, this was the most fun Grasshopper match I've seen, but it was far from vintage Breaks. Even taking into account that it was a tournament bout, it wasn't up to his usual standards. Unfortunately, he got booked in a lot of these situations towards the end of his television run. Colin Joynson vs. Pat Roach (12/15/82) This was great stuff. Joynson hadn't appeared on TV since the very beginning of 1980 and this aired on 4/16/83 even though it was apparently taped five months before. Walton was excited to have him back just like he was any time an older face showed up, but what excited me was Joynson's initiation into the forearm smash club. I'm a huge fan of heavyweights who trade forearm smashes and Joynson slotted right in. They did a great job of establishing that Roach wouldn't have it all his own way while at the same time making it clear that nobody could stop him from performing a crotch hold and slam any time he wanted. Joynson was tenacious and really hung with Roach here. Every now and again, Pat would start throwing forearms and have to check himself since he was a blue eye in the movies now, but for sheer physicality this was everything you could hope for and more. Joynson was considerably shorter than Roach, but bigger than he'd ever been and he threw that bulk behind every move. I love this kind of power wrestling. This was also notable for an out of position Dave Rees getting taken out by Joynson. You don't see that too often. Even Walton commented that Rees looked a bit white around the gills after the collision. Vic Faulkner vs. Rocky Moran (11/2/83) This was one of Moran's early television bouts and he was still wrestling as though it was his first day in the company instead of as an out and out heel. That was a shame as I wanted to see him wipe that smug look from Faulkner's face. The match was disappointing short and ended on a lame injury note. Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Colin Joynson (11/2/83) The Colin Joynson television comeback continues. According to Walton, Joynson was only a part time wrestler now. I think he owned a pub or was running a boarding house. Something like that. At any rate, Colin Joynson in 1983 equaled smash mouth wrestling. These two were not afraid to throw forearm smashes or deliver hard body checks. There was so much weight in the ring that any time they slammed one another into the canvas it looked like the most forceful body slam imaginable. Even the back body drops were a thing of beauty here. Really great Singh bout. Almost at the level of the Terry Rudge stuff. The strikes were awesome and Joynson showed why he earned his "panzar" nickname. Keith Haward vs. Kurt Heinz (8/23/83) Poor old Kurt Heinz. He actually survived into the third round against Haward, but you wouldn't know based on the way ITV chose to edit it. Haward knocked him out on a release german suplex, which was pretty loose looking. Jim Breaks vs. Rick Wiseman (8/23/83) This was entertaining stuff. It was the semi-finals of a knockout tournament but Breaks still found a way to make their ten minutes memorable. Realistically, Wiseman stood no chance, but Breaks' performance was so good it made you wonder if the upset was possible. The Swadlincote crowd rode Breaks hard and were right behind Wiseman. Walton kept going on about how Wiseman was using Breaks' own moves against him, but practically everybody tried that at some point or another. The awesome thing about this was that when Breaks finally took over and executed the Breaks Special he went after the arm with a quiet fury that was designed to shut every mouth in the hall. Not as good as Murphy/Robinson, but one of the better pre-final tournament bouts you'll see.

This wasn't very good at all. Maybe legit one of the worst matches from the inter promotional era.

What a great crowd. Delphin seemed to feed off them and gave a stellar performance, which was impressive since he was only really there to make saves. Of course Funaki and Teoh's Southern style junior tag work was great as well. Sasuke, like Toyota, is blessed with amazing flexibility which allows him to be turned every which way but loose. There's no way having him hobble about trying to hit his signature stuff would have made this any better. They got enough heat with the nearfalls and diving saves as it was. The ending was hotter than a lot of bigger halls, and as Loss mentioned, very All Japan like. Tremendous scenes at the end with the Sendai fans. Did the New Japan juniors have a better tag than this? Great match that has to be one of the high points of late 90s juniors work.

This was okay, but the botched moonsaults and JOCS at the end were a killer. Both women have had better days.

This is naturally disappointing if you compare it with both women's best matches, their name value, or even the tag matches they had against each other; but once you get over the fact it's imperfect, it's actually a match with a lot going for it. The early going is mostly bitchiness and trash talking with Toyota applying submissions that Ozaki will never give into and Oz looking to cut down the height advantage by keeping Toyota grounded. Sticklers might argue that Ozaki's arm work doesn't lead anywhere, but it's not meant to. As with most Joshi matwork, it's needle, not a serious attempt at ending the match. Ozaki is focused on attack, which she needs to be with the height she's giving away, while Toyota is more dynamic. There's a really neat spot where Ozaki ducks a front dropkick and Toyota goes flying right through the ropes. It would have made a really good turning point in a more narrative driven match, but Toyota quickly takes back the momentum with her rolling cradle. The stretch run also has some cool spots. Toyota suplexing Ozaki on the outside looked great as Ozaki created that rag doll effect when she'd bump and the follow-up moonsault had a reckless edge to it. Toyota doesn't have to dig deep enough to put Ozaki away and Ozaki isn't really given any big nearfalls where it looks for a second like Toyota might lose, which is disappointing given what a tough cookie Oz was. But if you lower your expectations to *** from ****+, I thought this was eminently watchable.

It did. It also had a clip of Blue Panther vs. Gran Cochisse that I'd love to see again.

I found some more stuff from '84 on YouTube: Eddie Riley vs. Ian McGregor (11/20/84) These two were proteges of Marty Jones. Walton was particularly fond of Eddie Riley, who was 10 st 9 lbs and speedy. McGregor was only 17 here and it's kind of hard for a 17 year old to be interesting. The closest I've seen anyone come is Dynamite Kid. The bout was okay, but nothing major. Tally Ho Kaye/Sid Cooper/Roy Scott vs. Chic Cullen/Drew McDonald/Ian McGregor (9/11/84) This has to be one of the worst worked WoS bouts I've seen in terms of how pathetic it was. How hard would it have been for them to work a short workrate sprint? The crowd would have loved it, Walton would have loved it, and everyone would have looked good. Instead they pissed around and did some comedy before Scott walked out (since he wasn't even a heel) and the Scots won. Just inexplicably poor. Steve Kelly vs. "Banger" Tony Walsh (aired 1/24/84) I'm fairly certain this was taped on 12/13/83, but we'll go with the air date for now. Steve Kelly was the son of long time independent wrestler Pete Kelly. He made his television debut in the late 70s at the age of 16, but after a handful of appearances on television wasn't heard of again until this 1983 taping. And even after this he never appeared on television again. One of those stories, I suppose. Walsh wrestled completely cleanly here, which Walton couldn't really explain. Not a great bout by any stretch of the imagination, but it was neat to see Walsh in a singles match rather than the usual Big Daddy tags. Incidentally, for those trivia buffs out there, this was the first televised bout reffed by Ken Joyce. Chic Cullen vs. Ripper Derek Collins (11/1/84) No, not that Ripper Collins. The British Ripper Collins. A long time vet who really didn't get a look in against a prime Chic Cullen in this a quarterfinal bout for the 1984 Grand Prix Belt. Short and meaningless. Lucky Gordon vs. Andy Blair (6/13/84) Gordon had to have been one of the least talented Irish wrestlers to make World of Sport. The only good thing he did in this entire bout was his headbutts to Blair's torso as Blair was trying to get up. I think this was the young Scottish wrestler's television debut. You could argue that it was solid enough in that respect, but Gordon was so talentless that it's hard to make a case. Big Daddy/Pat Patton vs. Masked Marauder/Tony Walsh (2/2/84) Big Daddy/Pete Ross vs. Bruiser Ian Muir/Tony Walsh (11/1/84) Big Daddy/Pete Ross vs. Scrubber Daly/Tiny Callaghan (11/13/84) These were all terrible as you'd expect. The mystery of the Masked Marauder being revealed as Scrubber Daly pretty much sums up how utterly shitty the booking of Big Daddy was. Then you had Charlie McGhee bringing in Tiny Callaghan as the man to finally stop Big Daddy as though he could succeed where Quinn and Stax had failed, Scrubber Daly teasing out his hair as though he were Jerry Blackwell or Moondog Mayne with nowhere near the amount of talent, and the camera man missing Farmer Boy Ross' hot tag after he had bust his ass in the ring. About the only entertaining thing in these matches was Brian Crabtree being less than amused when they played the Big Daddy music for the heels' entrance and listening to Daddy's anguished ring apron work ("C'mon tag boy! You've got to tag!") Referee Peter Szakacs deserves some credit for selling the impact of a reverse irish whip posting between Daddy and Daly as though an earthquake had just hit the hall, but that's the only selling that was going on. Well, that puts a wrap on 1984. '84 marks the end of what I would consider the best era we have on tape: 1974-84. It was the last full year of wrestling on World of Sport, and while the deflections to All-Star had hurt the talent roster there were still a dozen or so workers who made Saturday afternoons great. It was very much the era of Marty Jones and Fit Finlay, who could not only lay claim to being the two best wrestlers in the country, but were responsible for training a lot of the newcomers as well. It was the end of the Breaks era (and Faulkner too for that matter), but Murphy surprised me by taking over as a premier heel. Daddy was really stale on top and it's probably fair to say that the heavyweight division was lacking he likes of Bridges and St. Clair. But all told it was a better year than '85 would be.

These two shows: September 22nd 1984 (Malvern, 21/6/84) September 29th 1984 (Malver, taped 21/6/84) The taping date should be 21/8/84 according to the britishwrestlingarchive.co.uk site.

I agree that Hokuto being the best in the world is antiquated idea, but it came from a time when people had to pick and choose their footage and "specialised" for want of a better word. One advantage of that is if you were a "Joshi guy" then you tended to watch entire shows instead of just the pimped matches and therefore you probably got a better overall feel for the scene than may be the case these days. It's also worth noting that there were guys like Mike Oles who vehemently disagreed with the Hokuto praise at the time. I can understand getting sick of Hokuto's injury misfortunes. I got bored of it myself. I do think it's interesting though that we both rejected what smarts have traditionally wanted/demanded to see in terms of selling and/or psychology.

Not really unusual, but I'm reading the Kimagure Orange Road manga at the moment and so far there's been a mention of a Choshu/Fujinami fight and Baba vs. Stan Hansen. Pretty cool.

It's ironic that this started getting good when Manami worked over Hokuto's knee given that the submission portions of Joshi matches are often the least interesting. Hokuto's selling was excellent, but Manami deserves credit for putting her in interesting looking holds. Her attack was a lot better than Hokuto's earlier unfocused work. She kind of blew that good will with the no-sell, though. As much of a Toyota defender as I am, and as much as I feel that she's a scapegoat for people who simply don't like Joshi, that no-sell of the piledrivers was inexcusable. If there was one saving grace for the no-sell it was that they quickly moved to the finishing stretch, which was nicely balanced and didn't go overboard with the moves or nearfalls. This was often touted as a match where Hokuto reels in Toyota's annoying tendencies, which I think is a bullshit read even with the indefensible no sell (not to mention the fact that Hokuto has annoying tendencies of her own.) The match is more focused (if you want to call it that) because of their past history. If you take away their Japan Grand Prix history this is just another good Toyota match, and contrary to popular opinion there are many good Toyota matches. Judging by some of the other comments about Hokuto, it seems that the yearbooks being released out of order and not showing the full picture makes Hokuto's Dangerous Queen narrative seem less impressive than it was, or maybe her hard luck story doesn't translate well these days.

Anybody who turned professional in England in the late 70s to early 80s. Had they been born earlier they could have ended a 20 or 30 year career on television.

Pirata Morgan vs. El Dandy (Hair vs. Hair) (9/23/88) This was the semi-main of EMLL's 55th Anniversary Show, the main event being Mogur vs. Máscara Año 2000. Please note that the Anniversary card listed on Wikipedia and Pro Wrestling History is incorrect and includes title matches that took place on the following week's show. The correct card is listed here -- http://www.thecubsfan.com/cmll/events/shows/00031000/00031497.php These 1988 Anniversary show matches were released on "Viva Lucha Libre II", a Japan only VHS tape that was produced toward the end of the bubble era when hardcore interest in wrestling was strong. Thanks to the efforts of Jose Fernandez a copy of the tape was located and eventually converted to DVD. To the best of my knowledge, there wasn't a tremendous amount of back story to this fight. We have a record of a trios match on the 9/16 Arena Mexico show between Los Bucaneros (Morgan, Bala and Verdugo) vs. Dandy, Cachorro Mendoza and Ringo Mendoza, and it's safe to assume there were other matches in the build up to the event. However, it's worth noting that although the Anniversary Show is traditionally EMLL's biggest show of the year, the degree to which they stack the card varies from year to year. The booking during this era was so fluid that they could run a title match or apuesta bout with little to no build. An abundance of talent meant that a week out from the Anniversary Show the 9/16 show was headlined by a Gran Cochisse vs. Blue Panther and Satanico vs. Texano double billing, while a week later the 9/30 show was led by Bestia vs. Santo and Lizmark vs. Fabuloso Blondy. The latter two match-ups were featured in trios matches on the Anniversary Show, yet the promotion didn't even take a week to pause. There's no real evidence therefore that this was a particularly important or historic Anniversary Show, or one that was pushed as hard as previous years. And as ever with lucha, it would be ill-advised to assume that Pirata vs. Dandy was a perfected booked feud. The best case scenario is that they had some cool trios matches in the lead in. What we can make a case for is that this was Dandy's breakout year as a singles performer. His push as we see it here really began in the summer of '87 when he defeated Kung Fu for the NWA World Middleweight Title. He dropped it back to Kung Fu a few months later, but from '88 he was programmed in a feud with Satanico that saw him eventually take the National Middleweight title from Lopez while trading hair losses. Dandy was in no less than five hair matches during 1988 with his only loss coming in the return match against Satanico. Morgan was also at the height of his powers here arguably as a worker and a singles draw. He was back at Arena Mexico two days later unsuccessfully challenging Enrique Vera for his UWA World Junior Heavyweight Title, but his day in the sun would come the following year when he dethroned Satanico for the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship and became embroiled in a memorable feud with Los Brazos, which we'll see later in the set.

This was always one of my favourite Toyota matches. If you're not a Toyota fan then there's not much appeal, and even if you like Joshi it's not really a great match per se, but what I like about it is the competitiveness. In most inter-promotional matches, Toyota would play the Queen Bee while the other girl was a second class citizen. Here she treated Fukuoka as though she were an All Japan girl. It wasn't until deep in the stretch run that she really took over, but even there Fukuoka earned a fair amount of cred for kicking out. I've mentioned before how much I enjoy these smaller league matches compared to a lot of Toyota's more high profile work. This one was like vs. like, which is seldom the best recipe for a match, so it wasn't quite the match-up that say Toyota vs. Ito was. It covered a lot of ground that I've been seeing on a daily basis from Toyota (same spots, same sequences), but again Toyota could have brushed Fukuoka off and no-one would have bat an eyelid. Hikari didn't really have the experience or confidence to stamp her mark on the bout, and the subtext of her being more than just a Toyota clone should have been more overt, but I liked this a lot. There may have been some sloppiness and dropped selling, but I don't get too hung up on those things.

Her Toyota-ness descends upon JWP for this Special Challenge match at Sumo Hall. This was entirely predictable in terms of how the hierarchical difference played out, but it was still a good performance from both women. Toyota pinched both Takako Inoue and Mima Shimoda's heel acts a bit too liberally for my liking, but she gave Kuzumi a real eye-opener in terms of what she (Kuzumi) was lacking. Kuzumi's selling was good, and she made the most of her comebacks when they came, but there was a marked difference in intensity and in the way Toyota was able to carry and project herself. Manami had the confidence to play to the crowd without worrying what her next move would be and was basically streets ahead of where Kuzumi was at. That's not to say that Kuzumi should have disappointed in her performance. She did about as well as expected and would become a great worker in her own right during the freelance era. After watching Toyota go through her own "head down, bum up" phase in 1990-91, it was fascinating watching the poised performer she'd become only a few years later. I'm not sure if Joshi workers mature faster than men, or if it's because their careers would burn faster under the old retirement rule, but the daily grind of the old system sure got them up to speed in a hurry.

I don't think that's what people mean by a top worker. "Top" means top handful in this case.

King Ben vs. Ray Robinson (6/28/84) This was the most regulation bout ever. There's not much you can say about it really. It just... happened. Skull Murphy vs. Ray Robinson (10/9/84) This bout on the other hand... This was the quarterfinals of the 1984 Grand Prix Belt tournament. Murphy could have easily treated this as a walkover given how unlikely it was that Robinson would beat him, but instead he put on the best quarterfinal I've seen from one of these television tournaments. Ray Robinson was a hard nosed type; a former amateur boxer who was a throwback to the less flamboyant wrestlers of the past. He'd made his debut in 1970, but didn't wrestle on television until 1982. Murphy put him over beautifully here. He was at his galling best, and the crowd got right behind a fired up Robinson. I think I questioned why Murphy won the 1984 Grand Prix, but he deserved it for filling the void left by heels like Breaks and Rocco. Chic Cullen vs. Sid Cooper (9/11/84) One guy who kept plowing away in '84 was Cooper. It's fair to say he was past his prime at this point, but still handy. There was a relatively short match from a Scotland vs. England episode, but Cullen continued to look good and didn't take any shit from Cooper whatsoever. It's natural to favour the heels in WoS, but as far as blue eyes you can root for go, Cullen was one of the elite few. Ray Steele vs. Skull Murphy (8/21/84) Murphy's at it again! Just when I thought I'd seen enough Ray Steele to last a lifetime here's a cracking bout with a fired up Steele trying to get a piece of wrestling's most hated man. Another feather in Murphy's cap. (Note to John -- this has the wrong taping date on the ITV website.) John Elijah vs. Lenny Hurst (10/11/83) One fall contest between two of my favourite unheralded guys that ended with the shittiest of injury finishes. They actually booked a finish where Hurst got injured from a gorilla press. Even Walton could barely muster his enthusiasm. Afterwards Elijah carried Hurst to the back, which was a bit weird. It kind of looked like Tarzan carrying Jane over the threshold. Hurst sadly died recently and I actually had no idea that he so traveled. I believe he worked in North America during the mid 70s. Pete Roberts vs. Skull Murphy (3/5/84) This was the rematch from the great bout I talked about in my last post. I was about as amped for this as you can possibly get for a World of Sport bout. Twenty minute time limit, no rounds, two falls to decide the winner, and the match in full, but despite all the promise it was a stalemate for the most part. There were a lot of holds that threatened to erupt into something nastier, but the ref was a bit over zealous. Even Walton seemed off his game here. Murphy took a one fall lead with only minutes remaining. You'd expect Walton to ram home the strife Roberts was in, but he called it as though it was the second round. Roberts was able to equalise, but the match fizzled out like a dead sparkler as time expired. A cruel disappointment, but it doesn't lessen the cracking unruliness of the first bout. Steve Logan vs. Rocky Moran (6/13/84) Slightly better than Moran's disappointing work in tags, but devoid of the personality and heel work that made him so exciting against Cullen and Kilby. Not sure where that Moran went to. John Naylor vs. Rick Wiseman (8/8/84) This was my first look at Wiseman, but the poor VQ, match length, and general mediocrity of Naylor made him impossible to gauge.

When is US matwork ever cool?

A lot of guardrail irish whips. Going through the 2014 G-1, I started a counter and almost every match had at least 1. This happens in all those 90s All Japan matches.

I hope she remembers to say: "Goodnight Blue Panther! Goodnight El Hijo del Santo!"

Vic Faulkner vs. Sid Cooper (4/26/84) This was the final of a knockout tournament for... the Golden Gown 1984... I'm not making this up, they were fighting for a boxing robe. Walton actually had the nerve to comment on how badly Faulkner wanted the gown. Even more amusingly, Joint did their usual trick of not deciding a winner. This might have been a good match in the 70s, but both men were a bit long in the tooth by '84. Every time there was a close-up on Faulkner you got a good look at how old he'd become. At least they aged naturally in British wrestling. I'm fairly certain that '84 was Vic Faulkner's last year on television and possibly the year he retired as he began working for Thwaites Brewery that year and went on to have a successful post-wrestling career. Faulkner was still popular with crowds so this had good heat, but his tricks were a bit outdated. Actually, "crowd" might be generous as there were more empty seats in this bout than I can remember seeing in a WoS bout. They worked an injury story line mid-match, but Faulkner blew it off down the stretch. Vic Faulkner vs. Sid Cooper (6/13/84) One of the most pointless replays I've seen from Joint. Cooper wound up getting himself DQ'ed and the Golden Gown was awarded to Faulkner in anticlimactic fashion. Why didn't they just have Faulkner win the April bout? Why did they overuse the replay system? If I were a punter and there was a tournament final billed, I'd save my hard earned for the next time they were in town. Anyway, Faulkner got the gown he so badly wanted, and there were people in the crowd to boot. Vic Faulkner vs. Kid Chocolate (4/26/84) Just the finish. Vic Faulkner vs. Dave Finlay (10/9/84) This was better than it had a right to be. Faulkner took a swing at Paula early on and later tried to surprise Finlay with a quick dropkick and hit Paula instead. In the confusion, Finlay charged at Faulkner and Vic scored a surprise pinfall. Paula was furious and Finlay a bit stunned. Walton mentioned that Finlay was angry at the ref while Faulkner just stood there with that shit eating grin on his face. Even Walton remarked: "he's quite happy. He's quite happy." Finlay unloaded on Faulkner after that and the remaining few minutes were heated, but as with much of this '84 footage, we only saw a sliver of what was actually a seven round fight.

Watching the press conference his answer about the no-compete clause was so phony.

I don't really believe that they did 100k on those events, but even if they did it's a drop in the bucket compared to the WWE's finances. We're only talking about US $250,000. If they can get a 100k buys on an IPPV they should be able to get enough subscribers to compensate for that in the long run. It's simply a matter of whether customers are willing to pay monthly instead of a one off purchase. IPPV doesn't seem particularly stable and their other platforms are useless. The way NJPW is broadcast is so fragmented that it makes sense to cut out the providers if they possibly can, but I don't really see how the site is as ambitious as the network.

This is a good intro -- http://www.1wrestlinglegends.com/column/lucha-00.html