ohtani's jacket

Alan Kilby vs. King Ben (10/7/81) This was absolutely incredible. I would have no hesitation in calling this one of the best WoS bouts ever. It was a title bout for the vacant British Heavy-Middleweight title, made vacant when Rocco won the World Heavy-Middleweight belt, and began with Brian Crabtree asking everyone to rise for the national anthem. At first, I thought there was much less fanfare for the Heavy-Middleweight belt than there had been for the World Heavyweight Championship bout between Bridges and Quinn, but from that point on the bout was phenomenal. The intensity was like nothing I've seen in WoS. Ben didn't smile once. Here was a guy who would lie in a hold and grin, but there were no jokes, no smirks, no tricks, no shtick, just sheer, bloody-minded determination. Both men wanted the title bad and they put on a hell of a wrestling bout. Imagine for a moment all of the stuff you find gimmicky or exhibition-y about WoS, then imagine if they took it deadly serious. Whatever image you have, it doesn't begin to approach the level of intensity here. On an older British wrestling message board there was a suggestion that these two had heat in real life. Whether they did or not, the match was wrestled on a razor's edge. I don't want to give away the finish, but it was so special that Brian Crabtree treated the post-match like a tennis final interviewing both men in the ring and mixing commiserations with congratulations. A really special moment in the annals of WoS. Top 10 WoS match for the 80s minimum.

Blackjack Mulligan vs. Kid Chocolate (9/29/81) Mal Sanders vs. John Naylor (9/29/81) Jan Curtis vs. Sid Cooper (9/29/81) John England vs. Pat Patton (9/29/81) Sid Cooper vs. Kid Chocolate (9/29/81) Mal Sanders vs. Pat Patton (9/29/81) Here we have the heats and semi-finals of the knockout tournament for the Mike Marino memorial shield; five minute one fall bouts, which in WoS parlance were commonly refereed to as "eliminators." In the case of a draw, the referee decided the winner based on skill and aggression. You may remember from the thread I made about him in The Microscope that Sanders, whom Marino brought into the business and was with him when he died, won the shield after defeating Cooper in the final. Marino's death was referred to rather nonchalantly by today's standards with Walton basically saying "in case you haven't heard, I hate to say it but Mike Marino died a few weeks ago." Walton's commentary seemed a bit off throughout to be honest. They were action packed five minute bouts because of the time limit and the skill and aggression factor, but Walton spent a lot of time questioning the wrestler's tactics instead of calling the action. At one point, he said Cooper wouldn't get anywhere with weakeners on Kid Chocolate and then he scored an immediate submission. None of the bouts were outstanding, but they were all enjoyable and the booking mixed things up with a few points decision, an injury finish, a flash pin and a submission victory. The only new guy for me was Jan Curtis, who was a former amateur wrestler wearing an amateur style singlet. Five minutes isn't a long time to judge someone, but he looked okay. Not a machine like Haward or Kurt Angle, but seeing him in a proper match would be interesting.

I don't think anyone is expected to watch all of the nominees, just the ones they're interested in. Anyway, I'm not going to participate anymore but it anyone has any questions about WoS or anything else I can help them with just ask.

Don't worry, Parv, I understand most of your vernacular I actually watched the All Blacks vs. USA from Soldier's Field yesterday and the American commentary was awesome. A whole new way to describe rugby.

Smarkschoice was a Joshi board at the time and ended up doing a separate poll for the greatest women's wrestlers of all-time. It will be a shame if women wrestlers aren't well represented this time round as I don't think that's an accurate reflection of their skills or contribution to wrestling.

I wouldn't make that sort of judgement since I took place in the original poll without being particularly qualified. What I was trying to get at is that if you've identified your priorities (as some people have) then I hope they properly explore them as Parv has been doing, for example, or Matt. I realise not every one can participate to that extreme, but two hours over eighteen months is doable.

Well, that is fair enough. If people know well enough to trust their instincts I don't have a problem with that.

Is it? If you have an insane amount of wrestling to watch and you can only tackle a small, probably recommended, sampling if those initial matches gives a real poor impression then I wouldn't want them to waste time on those wrestlers. Would it be nice if they could get at least 7-10? Yep, but save that for wrestlers with some redeeming qualities otherwise I can't even imagine how many wrestlers will just have to be looked over. Bull Nakano and Jaguar Yokota have no redeeming qualities? The idea of judging a wrestler based on one match is preposterous. Can you imagine if people did that under normal circumstances? What happens if you choose a bad match to start with? Well, I think the point of this forum is to direct people to matches where that won't happen. The joshi thread ideally will have a link to one of the Bull vs. Aja matches as opposed to Bull vs. Madusa from Road Wild. But the pimped match is not always going to be the one that gets you hooked. Everyone has had the experience where a pimped match didn't live up to the hype or they couldn't get into a worker at first until they saw a certain match and then went back and revisited the stuff they were cold on. It happens all the time. The recommended matches now seem a bit counterproductive to me if they're supposed to be the clincher.

If someone pimps you 3 matches as someone's best work and you watch all 3 but don't see the big deal, how much deeper should you dig? To be honest, I don't see the point in watching three matches of this wrestler and three matches of that wrestler because at some point if you keep doing that you're going to end up with a top 100 where you ranked workers based on only three matches. If you don't like a certain style and you decide "okay, I'm gonna watch three matches of a worker from this style and if I'm not impressed then forget it," what's the point? You might as well not bother. To me that's almost confirmation bias. It's not an honest effort at getting into a style. I can't tell people how they should watch wrestling, but I would hope that they're more selective with the wrestlers they invest time into than some willy-nilly approach to writing people off.

Is it? If you have an insane amount of wrestling to watch and you can only tackle a small, probably recommended, sampling if those initial matches gives a real poor impression then I wouldn't want them to waste time on those wrestlers. Would it be nice if they could get at least 7-10? Yep, but save that for wrestlers with some redeeming qualities otherwise I can't even imagine how many wrestlers will just have to be looked over. Bull Nakano and Jaguar Yokota have no redeeming qualities? The idea of judging a wrestler based on one match is preposterous. Can you imagine if people did that under normal circumstances? What happens if you choose a bad match to start with?

The first Baba match was really good. Brisco did a nice job of grounding him and the legwork played into the bout throughout. Brisco's selling was excellent, which made Baba look weak by comparison. He sold the leg fine, but his expressions while putting Brisco in a hold and his celebrating at the end struck me as not as naturally charismatic as I like my wrestlers to be. I get that he had sound psychology, but I think he gets a bit of a pass on execution and other mechanics because he's such an awkwardly put together big man. I'm not really sure where I'd rank him among heavyweights of his era, but not too high.

This was disappointing. Too much shitty crowd brawling. There are some good Shiryu vs. Sasuke exchanges throughout and the stretch run delivers some high octane stuff, but overall it's a massive step down from the multi man tags to end '96.

How can you decide to not vote for someone after three matches or even worse one? That's against the spirit of the entire thing.

VS NON-WRESTLERS Cena vs Kevin Federline - Raw 1st January 2007 This was less of a match and more of a RAW segment. Neither here nor there really. I kept waiting for the punchline, which was Umaga interfering. Not a bad segment, but not really enlightening as far as Cena goes. I think I'll watch the first Rock match and maybe the Michaels Wrestlemania match and call it a day on Cena. If I vote for him he'll be somewhere in the 80-100 range. He's not really a talented enough performer for me to rate higher and I'd rather focus my attention on finishing the Mysterio matches Jimmy recommended as I've enjoyed all of those.

Well, you've definitely piqued my interest in Brisco, whom I don't have a strong opinion about. I will check out those matches soon.

Big Daddy had some good matches in the 70s. He was better as a heel than a face.

Tally Ho Kaye vs. Kid Chocolate (3/17/81) Only a few minutes of this aired on ITV, but what was shown looked like good fun. Peter Kaye has gone up in my estimation lately, not necessarily in terms of his wrestling skills but in how consistently fun his segments were. I've seen Kid Chocolate against a bunch of guys and his main problem was always his lack of assertiveness. Here he was dishing out the headbutts to Kaye and generally getting over well. Kaye was a really good pro. Bobby Barnes vs. Pat Patton (1/13/81) This was fantastic. Barnes was a fucking master when he wanted to be. Patton was the hometown favourite in Wolverhampton and the heat the pair got was sensational. Barnes put on a masterclass in how to switch between shitty little heel tactics and the nastiest looking submissions imaginable. He got the crowd so worked up that a woman came up to his corner and had a real go at him. The crowd were hanging on Patton's every nearfall, but Barnes kept him at bay, which I thought didn't make much sense as the place would have erupted if Patton scored the winning fall. Still, the crowd got their night's entertainment and then some. Ray Steele vs. King Kong Mal Kirk (5/12/81) Huh, Steele jobbed in straight falls. What the hell is this? Bit of a flat bout.

I wouldn't say I've been unimpressed with all of his matches. I like him in certain contexts, but when people say he's the best big match worker in US history or he's a top 30 worker I expect a hell of a lot more.

TAG TEAM MATCHES Cena & Bourne vs Edge & Sheamus - Raw 31st May 2010 Not sure if this was meant to be an example of good Cena tag work or not. It seemed to be more about Bourne than Cena. I suppose it might be an example of Cena's apron work, but if so his acting was pretty shitty. The hot tag sucked as well. The five knuckle shuffle off a hot tag? I suppose you could spin this as the Cena version of Tenryu/Kawada vs. Hansen/Gordy if you wanted to, but you shouldn't because it was about as throwaway as a polystyrene cup. **

I watched that IYH match against Jarrett and it seems wildly inaccurate to say that Jarrett carried Michaels. At no point did Jarrett push Michaels outside his comfort zone and by no means was he the one making it interesting (abdominal stretches and sleeper holds are hardly my idea of carrying someone unless it's Erik Watts.) It was a Michaels match through and through. The best part of the bout was the bump he took to the floor. It wasn't my kind of match and Michaels can't wrestle the way I like, but you'd think he was incompetent the way this thread is going. The match felt like it could have done with a longer FIP segment on Michaels or some more interesting work from Jarrett on top, the comeback was standard WWF no-selling instead of a beautifully executed transition, and the Roadie crap was a distraction, but a carry? The entire thing seemed like a Michaels bout from the rope exchanges to the pinball style bumps to both guys being knocked down and the ref starting the count.

I keep remembering random points. * Joint Promotions didn't have any tag team championships, but in the early 80s they did this weird thing where they ran an annual tournament for the tag team championship where the winners were awarded belts they never defended. From memory, Murphy and Finlay won it the first year and then Jones and Myers the next.

That's the Royals for you. I hold them more or less responsible for British tag wrestling being the shambles that it was.

Dave Bond vs. Tom Tyrone (3/31/81) A match I can hear the commentary on tells me that Tyrone's television debut was the bout against Pete Stewart, so '81 is really his rookie year as far as we're concerned out in television land. He was a good young worker with some nice arm throws, but clearly a third or fourth year man. Walton complained that this wasn't exciting enough, but it suited me fine. I'm not sure the face turn was the best move for Bond though, who was better suited to heeldom. John Naylor vs. Kenny Hogan (2/11/81) Just a few minutes of this. Didn't leave much of an impression outside of Hogan's sneer. Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Abe Arbuckle (5/12/81) Arbuckle was a big strong weightlifter type. Really big man. Singh worked a couple of decent holds with him, but as usual was devoid of personality, and Arbuckle was never seen on TV again. John Wilkie vs. Bobby Ryan (9/9/81) Only the scoring action. Everything I've seen from Ryan's "comeback" has shown he didn't really have it anymore. Great worker in the 70s mind. Bert Royal & Vic Faulkner vs. Bobby Barnes & Sid Cooper (6/18/81) There hasn't really been any additional footage from '81 worth watching, but this was a fun tag. If you've seen The Royals before it's nothing new, but the Wembley Arena crowd were hot and Barnes and Cooper were outstanding as the bumping and stooging foils to The Royals' smart arse shit. Cooper took a bump to the floor and began jawing with this woman who was dancing in a circle and pointing to the sky. She must have been disabled or something, but Cooper slagged her off. Barnes was awesome here, which you can't always say about Barnes in the 80s. Faulkner kept making fun of his snazzy trunks and Barnes ended up taking it out on Faulkner's arm, fucking it up completely with the nastiest looking arm submission I've seen in some time. Of course, the Royals being structurally impaired, after that big FIP segment, Vic made the tag for Bert to clean house... and he moved some stuff and tagged Faulkner in after like 10 seconds... Faulkner was apparently fresh as a daisy and scored the winning fall. Forget the comedy, imagine if the Royals were actually good at this tag wrestling stuff.

One more thing, the MC in the first match was former wrestler Charlie Fisher.

I enjoyed it a lot. In the future, you should check out Brian Maxine for sure. And Sid Cooper. Tally Ho Kaye might be fun too as far as gimmicks go.