ohtani's jacket

There's wrestlers and then there's wrestlers' wrestlers, and Colin Joynson was a wrestler's wrestler. A powerful, powerful man. Steve Regal recommended this match recently on twitter, so I will too: Bob Kirkwood, could have been your gym teacher but another pro's pro. Watch him carry young prospect John Carlo to a thoroughly decent match:

Here's a wrestler known to most of you, Chris Adams, against a man who needs no introduction, Dave "Fit" Finlay, back in his hoodlum days before he hooked up with Princess Paula and became the mulleted Finlay you all know and love. Before Sayama came over and stunned everyone with his speed and quickness, there was a sensation in British rings by the name of Kung Fu. This was after he unmasked against one of Steven Regal's idols, Cyanide Sid Cooper:

This might interest you Parv as a guy made a video about the moves in WoS: I listened to Regal on Austin's podcast yesterday and he has a theory that the reason the British style was generally more technical than the American style is that the rings were smaller and rock hard. I suspect it has a lot to do with the Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules myself, but it's as good a theory as any.

Alan Kilby vs. King Ben (6/18/86) This had the potential to be an exciting bout but it was a bit flat. There was a spot that summed up Ben nicely. Kilby put him in a hold and Walton exclaimed "danger here!" but Ben just lay there with a dopey grin on his face. Walton was so embarrassed/taken aback that he went into a lengthy (and unusual for him) explanation about how older wrestlers used to submit people instantly with the same hold and that Ben deserved credit for not submitting. To me it was yet another indication that Ben didn't get the most out of his bouts. There was some good stuff down the stretch but nothing outstanding. And par for the course in '86 when Walton said there were two rounds to go they immediately cut to the final round. These two years that ITV tried to kill off wrestling was a slow painful death. Skull Murphy vs. Alan Kilby (11/1/84) This was joined half way through and was good stuff. I've been impressed in the latest batch of footage how good Murphy was working from the top. Of course Kilby is a great opponent for him since he's just the kind of guy that heels love to pick on, but he's gone up in my estimation by leaps and bounds. Skull Murphy vs. Alan Kilby (7/10/85) This was supposed to be a title bout but Murphy came in seven pounds too heavy so it was switched to a non-title bout. Since the weights were worked, I'm not sure why they pulled these bait and switch tactics, but perhaps they did it to maintain the legitimacy and credibility of the weight classes. Murphy took out his frustrations on Kilby and I actually thought he cheated too much here. They had a better bout in them if it hadn't been all about Murphy riding his luck with public warnings. One thing Murphy had going for him was that everywhere they played crowds hated his guts. I don't know if it was his shaven head or his constant cheating, but he rubbed them up the wrong way. For that reason alone, I would consider him one of the stronger heels of the decade, but like I said I wanted a bit more out of this bout. Honey Boy Zimba vs. Alan Kilby (12/3/82) Boy was Zimba fat here. The most interesting thing about this was the spilled water that led to the finish of the Marty Jones/Skull Murphy match. I still can't figure out whether that was an intentionally booked finish. It just seems so convoluted that they would set-up the finish to the next match but having Kilby innocuously spill his drink bottle. If it was booked that way then whoever came up with it was either a genius or bored. Alan Kilby vs. Diamond Shondell (10/31/85) Shondell was from the same stable of wrestlers that were trained by Finlay's dad Dave Finlay Sr, only you'd never guess it because it was an out and out comedy wrestler. Walton found him highly amusing and it's worth watching the bout just to hear Kent's reactions. Really quirky stuff. Kilby had some great reaction shots. Alan Kilby vs. Billy Jo Beck (8/29/85) Trivia time folks. If anyone asks you what the final wrestling bout shown on WoS was then here's your answer, Alan Kilby vs. another Northern Irishman. Not what you'd call going out on a high note. Hidden Kilby gems look pretty scant at this point. Alan Kilby vs. Johnny Apollon (11/1/83) Apollon was a bodybuilder type that had been brought into the business by Lee Bronson and owned the gym that Keith Haward and Tom Tyrone worked out at, all of whom were good connections. He looked a decent prospect but didn't have any connection with the crowd and lacked any showman skills. Kilby was better in '83 than just the late 80s malaise, but I don't think he was the type to carry a lesser worker. More of a quality foil for heels. By and large the heels were meant to call the matches in British wrestling, but Apollon wasn't all that heelish and that was another area where he wasn't doing it for the crowd. I liked him enough to want to see him again though.

ACE VS MIDCARDER Cena vs Seth Rollins - Smackdown 27th December 2013 This was okay. I thought Cena started selling too much, too early as after a few minutes he was like he'd been in a fifteen minute fight, and that was off some pretty standard kick-punch-highspot rinse and repeat offence. I'm also not sure that having Rollins dominate was the best way to put him over. The way I see it, if the bout is even and you get your licks in, you come out looking much tougher than if you dominate for the entire bout and lose to a guy's finisher. All people remember is that Cena won not that Rollins took him to the limit. On the plus side, Rollins looked better than I expected. He's still a guy who's lacking in fundamentals, but his performance was mostly solid. I'd rate this one about ***

Gilbert Leduc vs. Quasimodo Ha, Quasimodo was awesome. I haven't seen this much commitment to character since Lon Chaney Sr. You could almost swear he was a hunchback and that the lump on his skull was some sort of cranial deformity. The match itself was nothing special. Quasimodo mainly worked nerve holds, which made it the French version of a Kamala match or something similar. But the eerie atmosphere made it seem like an old silent horror film and it would make a good bout for Halloween. Catch wrestling sure had a colourful rogues gallery. It's like the golden age of wrestling villains. Hell, there's even a Batman gimmick worker that I'm hoping to see soon, though I'm not sure if he actually plays the actual Batman or does a bat gimmick.

How is that in any way surprising? Aren't those the five biggest stars of the era those readers grew up in?

Let's ignore all the emotive language you used then. People were making GOAT arguments for Shawn in the late 90s. The internet was full of that stuff prior to his comeback. There's always been Shawn fans out there. There were boards where if you tried to argue that Misawa or Kawada were better workers than Shawn you'd be accused of being either a purist or an elitist. The WWE tapped into something that already existed. Shawn was already calling himself the show stopper and the icon before he left. A lot of it was ripping on Hogan. The big difference with his comeback was that the WWE had begun embracing its history more, partially out of a need for more content/programming and I suppose partially because Vince either felt nostalgic or a sense of fulfillment that he had finally run his last major competitor out of time and now was the time to reflect. So instead of ignoring history au every step, they embraced it and opened up about it and that gave Michaels the chance to add to his legacy. As for Bruno, I wasn't around in New York in the 70s so I can't speak to the way he was marketed and presented, but if her come along a few years later he would have been subjected to much more hype since the WWF was a bigger company then with a marketing machine behind it. I also wonder how people outside of New York thought of the way Bruno was presented. Maybe they thought everything coming out of NY was bullshit compared to the territories they followed.

Where are the Sting as GOAT arguments then? Why are you looking to the company for GOAT arguments? They call themselves the WWE Universe for chrissake, what do you expect? If you're looking for some bastion of the truth you're looking in the wrong place. I'm not, but the company tell me HBK is the GOAT anyway. And then loads of supposedly smart free-thinking fans repeat the line to me. A lot. Over and over again. For a decade. So what? You haven't really explained why this puts your nose out of joint. Is it some affront to you as a free-thinking wrestling fan? I don't see how anyone who came up through the Bret/Shawn era would bat an eyelid at any of this. I remember when Michaels returning to guest commentate on RAW was a big deal.

M-Pro came up in the thread about spotfests and since I haven't seen it in years I thought I'd reacquaint myself. This is a fun bout, but it's basically lucha without the psychology and a slightly more superior version of Hamada's UWF. The workers are all genuinely likeable, but the Kaientai stuff veers a bit too close to a parody of rudo teamwork, which is born out by the commentator explaining everything like it's a travel documentary. The shifts in momentum are similar to a trios match, but without the falls they come and go without much rhyme or reason. The rudo beatdown (that wasn't really a beatdown) could've gone for longer, which would have made the technico comeback stronger, for example. On the plus side, the finishing stretch was a barrel of fun, and I bought on Delpin's big nearfall at the end. I didn't have a problem with the length. It was a 10 man tag so it took longer for everyone to get their shit in. It was more the persistent rhythm that lacked a few subtleties.

Where are the Sting as GOAT arguments then? Why are you looking to the company for GOAT arguments? They call themselves the WWE Universe for chrissake, what do you expect? If you're looking for some bastion of the truth you're looking in the wrong place.

Shawn was heavily hyped, pushed and marketed before his comeback. He's one of the biggest stars in the history of the company. That's always been the perception regardless of the numbers he drew. It's much closer to 50% reality, 50% marketing.

I wonder how Parv feels about the way Hogan was marketed. The marketing for Michaels makes perfect sense from the company's point of view.

Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (5/28/83) I watched these tags out of order as this was the first in the trilogy. This wasn't quite as good as the other two. In fact, it was more like the style of British tag wrestling I'm used to as though they hadn't quite broken free of the shackles. There was still plenty of good stuff, but you could probably argue that Jones and Myers were too dominant and the Riot Squad were too much like a heel in peril WWF team. Vic Faulkner/Marty Jones vs. Lenny Hurst/Jim Moser (aired 3/31/84) This was a match filled with interesting contrasts. On one hand, you had Marty Jones, arguably the best wrestler in Europe at the time, working awesome exchanges with Lenny Hurst and then on the other hand you had Vic Faulkner playing silly buggers. A lot of what Faulkner did was amusing and the West Indians were willing and able straight men, but it occurred to me that perhaps what had been holding British tag wrestling back for so long as the popularity of the Royal brothers and how they turned tag matches into gimmick comedy bouts. The contrast worked, don't get me wrong, but it did prevent the match from being flat out awesome, which it could have been under different circumstances. If you like comedy in your wrestling it was the best of British, that's for sure. Vic Faulkner/Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay/Rocky Moran (aired 3/31/84) Faulkner was more serious in this since it was the final, but again it felt a bit one sided with Jones steamrolling the Irishmen, though it has to be said that Jones' powerlock is, as Walton puts it, both 'murder' and 'Indian death." Jones was so much better than everyone else offensively and wrestled with such intensity that he often outclasses his opposition perhaps without meaning to. That would be my biggest criticism of him. Apart from that, I would rank him alongside Breaks and Grey as the best of his era with Cortez being next. These matches I watched recently were the last real footage of Jones available aside from bits and bobs, and I'm glad I went ahead and ordered them as I was not only reminded of the class of the man but found a couple of hidden gems. This wasn't one of those gems, but a decent bout. Faulkner working seriously was almost as goofy as when he was taking the mickey, but I suppose that's a stigma I've attached to him. Moran was a bit disappointing by previous standards and his tag team with Finlay didn't really have the same vibe as the Riot Squad. But I suppose aside from re-watches and maybe the odd bout here and there that puts a close to Marty Jones. Great wrestler and phenomenal talent that I hope more people familiarise themselves with in the future.

BRAWLS AND BLOODBATHS Cena vs Edge (Last Man Standing) - Backlash 2009 Again going with the one I haven't seen. This was such a boring match. It's a last man standing match, brawl for fuck's sake. The first two thirds were unbelievably boring. They went to the 10 count so many times. I was actually pumped for this one as I enjoyed the entrances and the pre-match vibe, but they sucked the life out of it with the 10 count spots. I hate Cena's adrenaline rushes. If the match is all laid out for you like a script then the only thing you need to worry about is execution, and if you can't execute a believable transition back onto offence under those circumstances then you can't be much of a worker. Then came all the stuntman bullshit. The Attitude Adjustment into the crowd was a stupid spot that put the fans in danger. Then there was a bunch of bullshit crowd brawling, running around backstage, gimmick spots and stunt tricks. All of this shit sucked. Cena can't run properly for starters and apparently you have to kill him dead to win a match. Edge and Cena are the wrong guys to do a match like this. Their acting skills are so shoddy that it looks stupid when they try to sell that they're out on their feet. That spot where they were so buggered they leaned on each other was tripe. Everything about this was tripe. The commentators trying to sell those steps as being heavy was a bad joke. This was a DUD.

Hashimoto/Zangiev is the greatest short match ever.

Kato Kung Lee vs. Kung Fu (Mask vs. Hair) (4/29/88) There aren't a whole lot of explanations necessary for this one since it was an apuesta match between former tag partners. Not only as Los Fantasticos incidentally, but dating back to the late 70s as tag partners in EMLL and in the "El Triangulo Oriental" trio with Satoru Sayama. None of my Spanish sources have ever written up this feud, and I don't have access to the magazines from the time, so you can take a stab at guessing the motivations yourself. In 1984, Los Fantasticos were on the top of the world having defeated Los Cadetes del Espacio to become the first ever UWA World Trios Champions, but things quickly fell apart as they did with many short peak trios teams of the 1980s. When the Fantasticos broke up, they each went their separate ways. Black Man opted to stay in the UWA, Kung Fu went back to the promotion that made him, and Kato Kung Lee began wrestling on the independent circuit (mostly Promociones Mora.) Lee took a payday at the end of '86 from Mora and dropped his mask to Santo in Tijuana, which exists on tape apparently: Lee then kicked around for a year or so before the bout you see here. The build doesn't appear to have been anything special though obviously we're missing Arena Mexico records from the weeks prior. The Atlantis vs. Kung Fu rivalry was building up a head of steam at the same time and appears to have been a bigger deal in the promotion's eyes. Kung Fu dropped the NWA World Middleweight Title to Atlantis in June and would eventually lose his mask to Atlantis in October of 1990. Kung Fu and Kato Kung Lee fought each other a few more times, most notably on the 3/1/91 Arena Mexico show, but the bouts were never anything special and far from important. As one of my sources so wonderfully described, Lee would fall into a slump in gambling fights and pedal his hair to numerous wrestlers in the years that followed. It's worth noting that in late '88, Lee and Kung Fu reformed Los Fantasticos with Black Man and worked some of the UWA venues together, as well as appearing at Arena Mexico in 1989, so apparently they buried the hatchet for a time. That would also indicate that Kung Fu turned technico some time after dropping the belt to Atlantis. While Lee won't be remembered as one of the greats of lucha libre, he was an interesting guy out of the ring. His real name was Johnny Lezcano Smith and he was born in the Arraijan District of Panama. He started out learning taekwondo and judo at his local YMCA before being introduced to lucha through wrestler Chamaco Castro, who once put his hair on the line against a young El Hijo del Santo in Panama for what it's worth. Smith trained in secret and made his professional debut without his parents knowledge (or consent) and when his mother found out she tried to enroll him in the US Navy. According to Smith, he fled to Colombia where he continued to wrestle and subsequently fought in Venezuela, Panama and Guatemala before moving to Mexico City in 1970 where he fought for many years in Ciudad Juarez before getting a break. Definitely a life less ordinary and one of the more interesting routes to distrito federal and the big time.

SELLING BODY PARTS Cena vs Damien Sandow - Raw 28th October 2013 It goes without saying that this was a better selling performance from Cena than the past few matches. In fact, this is the Cena whom I'm more familiar with and have always thought was a pretty good worker. It seems to me that the Cena of the past few years is a better worker than the one from '07-09, though I guess that's easy to say when you haven't been watching him for seven years straight and gotten tired of the same old shit. I really couldn't imagine Cena doing a better job selling this match, though. The arm hung there like it was barely attached, he sold it for the entire duration and it effected all of his big spots. And best of all, he never went overboard with it. If you're a psychology mark then this is like a wet dream. Sandow seemed fairly generic, but the finishing stretch was exciting and the nearfalls were great. Amusingly enough, there was a "this is awesome" chant that I will happily admit fit the mood. Since this was a television match, and an opener to boot, and I couldn't imagine it being any better, I'll drop the big ****

Lawler was an average joe who succeeded at pro-wrestling through grit and determination. Hogan was presented as a genetic freak and outstanding athlete. There was a world of difference in their appeal to the common man.

I watched a Malenko/Smiley match from Worldwide and I would agree that it's a total spotfest. It's wrestled at pace, the transitions are too easy and nothing is sold. On the other hand, it's a five minute Worldwide match so who's really bothered. The biggest problem with it was that Smiley wasn't on Malenko's level as a mat worker so comes off looking second best.

Malenko vs. Smiley sounds like fun. Matwork for its own sake is beautiful.

OVERDRAMATIC SPORTZ ENTERTAINMENT STORYTELLING Cena vs Randy Orton (I Quit) - Breaking Point 2009 Oh man, this was bad. Was this even a wrestling match? It felt like a straight to video B film. I know the guys who come up with this stuff are trained writers who've read all the right books and been to all the right seminars, but this was exhibit A in the argument that you can only adopt certain story elements in wrestling and not have all these cinematic ideas. It was like watching a film student with some knowledge of the I Quit classics try to direct one of his own. The ideas where there, but the wrestlers didn't have the range to pull it off. Cena can't act. He's not even that good a promo. Yet here he is having to deliver these hammy noooos into the microphone. His acting was poor and his selling even worse. He can't transition onto offence properly and he's not able to do any sort of sustained selling. The way he shrug off the beating he'd taken here was an absolute joke. I don't think I'm a huge stickler for consistent selling and I'll give a wrestler a break if they drop their selling but continue doing something good, but c'mon. He was handcuffed to the rope and the pole and brutalised. He should have been half dead. The commentators tried to sell it like he was half dead. Whoever came up with the whole handcuff thing was clearly thinking about the visuals and how sadistic it would make Orton seem, but on top of being overly violent in the way it was presented, it just led to one cringeworthy moment after another. And after all that, Orton quits that easily? Are you kidding me? I contemplated rating this as a DUD. Meltzer gave it **** 1/4, which surprised me as up until now we've been pretty much in line with our ratings. I had the warning coming in that it was overly dramatic, but my opinion of Cena's selling continues to nose dive. Let's give it **

20-25 mins is ideal. I don't mind a shorter match so long as it doesn't feel too short. I'm in the same boat as Matt about caring about video length times.

I will watch the other Cena/Rock match eventually. I didn't know that Rock was injured. He did well to gut that out.

Phil Collins has more artistic merit than Chief Jay Strongbow.