ohtani's jacket

11/22/91 is the correct date.

I already expect there will be people who won't vote for Satanico, and I can think of at least three big lucha fans who don't rate him as highly as I do, so it's not something that would upset me. My picks never do well in this sort of thing. If I were to make my list tomorrow and include Cena, where would I put him? How could I rank him against Satanico who I've seen wrestle in just about every match situation? I'm trying to look at the pros and cons of every worker I vote for and weight those things accordingly, but I don't think I can do that fairly with Cena and a token vote is a waste of space. Having said that, if he's such a lock then maybe I should watch more of him. I don't really see how I can catch up in time though unless I start exclusively watching John Cena matches. I only watch a dozen or so wrestling matches a week so it's a bit of a quandry. I haven't even got properly started on Rey yet.

It's not a troll. I haven't watched WWE TV weekly since 2001. It's possible that I've seen less than a dozen John Cena matches.

I might abstain on voting for Cena because I only ever watch his most highly pimped stuff.

Conneally (or however it's spelled) really stretches the limits of believability as he's basically a comedian doing a wrestling act. Personally, I don't find him funny, but as the old adage goes: "everybody was somebody's favourite."

Who's saying he's wrong? I suspect he's wrong that's all. If Dick Murdoch was a household name in Japan then about 20-30 other guys must have been too and that's a lot of household names. My impression of Murdoch is that he was a second tier star. He wasn't one of the truly big stars of the 70s and jumped to New Japan at a time when foreigners were being de-emphasised in favour of native feuds. He was respected by his peers, a fan favourite, and a guy promoters welcomed back time and time again, but during wrestling's hottest run he was predominantly a tag wrestler. One thing that I would consider is how important were his main events against Inoki or Baba. Once you got outside Tokyo and some of the bigger areas, the draws were really Inoki and Baba because it was a chance to see those guys live in person in your hometown/prefecture. So it really becomes a question of how important it was that Murdoch was an opponent. I suspect (but don't know for sure) that the concept of drawing and main event billing in American cities is slightly different from how AJPW and NJPW drew outside of the Kanto region. So, I'd look at how they drew the last time they were in town and whether Murdoch was ever used to pop a bigger gate, and I'd look at how he was used in key markets like Tokyo and Osaka. Don't forget that the tour rosters weren't that big. Dick was a guy they trusted and who toured more than 50 times. He was a top foreign star, but there weren't that many foreign stars at any one time. You're going to rotate him in and out of your main events while on tour. So I think it's important to look for something a bit more special than the number of times Dick was in the main event.

Murdoch's New Japan run fom '81-89 is what he is most remembered for, particularly the '81-83 period where New Japan was really hot. I don't think anybody remembers him as a 70s star or even an All Japan guy. The whole household name thing is slight hyperbole. You have to take into consideration the scale of what that entails. Baba and Inoki were household names. Was Murodch on that level? As for shoot style, Dave mentioned he picked up on the submissions, but the submissions Murdoch worked were pre-shoot style NJ holds.

Was Murdoch really a household name in Japan? I find that hard to believe. He's never a name that's immediately brought up when people reminisce about Showa era wrestling and Meltzer's obit goes on to say he was at the level of Adrian Adonis and The Masked Superstar not a Hogan or Andre. And as for being able to work shoot style just because he could do an armbar, really?

I've never really gotten to the bottom of why EMLL talent could work at El Toreo. Jose told me the reason wrestlers moved freely between the UWA and EMLL was because Flores didn't have contracts with anyone, but there are times when it seemed like the promotions were co-operating. Fishman seems like another potential candidate.

If there's to be a HOF going forward that inducts new modern candidates and not just historical ones then Tanahashi unequivocally belongs in the hall. He didn't have to go in so soon, but he belongs there for certain.

No, I don't think that's a bad read. He's the type of worker who would purposefully entertain with his holds, work in jokes and throw little winks to the audience. Then when it was time to get serious he'd roll the sleeves up and cut out the jokes. He had a really nasty piledriver that sticks out like a sore thumb compared with the rest of his antics. I also love how he's the Terry Funk of WoS, always retiring then coming back. MJH mentioned the other day that he finds a lot of the face vs. face WoS stuff too exhibition-y. I think there's a place for all styles whether it's fast paced lightweight stuff, the slower heavyweight bouts, the comedy stuff, or the heated blue-eye vs. villain bouts. I like how you can have all those different styles in the same promotion. I'm not sure it would have worked without Walton. The way he could call a Pallo match or a Kellet or Kevin Conneally match, where they'd stop and tell a joke in the middle of the match, as though they were deliberate pranksters taking the mickey out of their opponents is some of the best straddling of kayfabe you'll ever hear.

Maybe. I do find his non-Steve Grey 70s work more interesting than the majority of his Iron Fist run. But it's more the case that as 'Iron Fist' he fails to deliver even against top talent. If he'd had better matches outside of the 80s Grey bouts and the Haward draw, I would rate him a tier above.

Note: I decided to do away with the Annoying as Fuck category as I found it obnoxious. There were minor changes here and there, but Ray Steele, Marc Rocco, Zolton Boscik and Mal Sanders were the big movers.

I realised that I haven't updated this in a year, so here we go... Ranking the European workers v. 3 (Oct 2014) All-Time Greats Jim Breaks, Mick McManus, Alan Sarjeant, Jon Cortez, Marty Jones, Steve Grey Great Workers Terry Rudge, Tibor Szacaks, Mike Marino, Ken Joyce Excellent Workers Bobby Barnes, Robby Baron, Franz van Buyten, Clive Myers, Steve Veidor, Sid Cooper, Alan Kilby, Pat Roach, Pete Roberts, Caswell Martin Strong Hands Johnny Czeslaw, John Elijah, Tiger Dalibar Singh, Keith Haward, Tom Tyrone, Brian Maxine, Steve Logan (Snr), Les Kellett, Romany Riley, Alan Wood, Axl Dieter, Bobby Ryan, Dave Finlay, Ray Steele, Marc Rocco, Zolton Boscik Decent Hands Tony St. Clair, Jim Moser, Chic Cullen, Peter La Paque, Colin Joynson, Ray Robinson, Johnny Kincaid, Vic Faulkner, Tony Costas, Bert Royal, Roy St. Clair, John Kowalski, Johnny South, Ringo Rigby, Rocky Moran, Jeff Kaye, Johnny Kidd, Young David, Otto Wanz, John Quinn, Tony Walsh, Rene Lasartesse, Dynamite Kid, Steve Regal, Clay Thomson, Johnny Kwango, Bob Kirkwood, Prince Kumali, Dave Bond, Tarzan Johnny Wilson, Lenny Hurst, René Ben Chemoul, Gilbert Cesca, Bob Plantin, Mal Sanders, Tally Ho Kaye, Indio Guajaro, Klaus Wallas, Jackie Turpin, Klaus Kauroff, Count Vladimir, Pat Patton, Little Prince Average Kung Fu, Alan Dennison, Tony Charles, Mick McMichael, Count Baretlli, Lee Bronson, Honey Boy Zimba, Kendo Nagasaki, Skull Murphy, Johnny England, Mike Jordan, Kid Chocolate, Dave Taylor, Ivan Penzekoff, Billy Torontos, Colonel Brody, Bernie Wright, Peter Wilson, King Ben, Bruno Elrington, Black Jack Mulligan Overrated Johnny Saint, Steve Wright, Eddie Capelli, Wayne Bridges, John Naylor, Danny Collins, Chris Adams

One of my personal favourites, John 'The Bear' Elijah. A rock solid power wrestler, who never had a truly great match but was consistently excellent. My choice of match may seem odd, but it's the only time I've seen Big Daddy bother to have a proper singles match (or a proper match or any sort really.) Terry Rudge, not actually held in as high esteem among British fans as in our circle, presumably because he spent most of his time overseas, but truly a God among workers. Here he is in one of the finest WoS bouts to make tape:

The 'Polish Eagle' Johnny Czeslaw, tough as nails with a cracking sense of humour. British wrestling had a lot of performers like this. Guys who could do comedy but also wrestle. The playing to the gallery can be a bit offsetting at first, but if you like you like British comedy you soon get the swing of it. Here he is against a very underrated wrestler, Romany Riley: This is a bit of a cheat as we don't have much of him on tape, but I thought people might appreciate the stylings of the positively unknown Alan Wood.

I used to be very negative about Rocco, but his work from '76-79 is excellent. He wasn't the best wrestler in the UK at the time, but he was the complete package when it came to a television personality and heel act. Marty Jones reigned him in well, but even in bouts where he takes center stage, he was an exciting act during that time. He's especially good in catchweight bouts where he wrestles a lot more instead of just pinballing about. His early 80s work isn't quite as good but there's still some highlights. Just avoid the Dynamite Kid stuff for the most part. I still don't like him in All-Star, and especially New Japan where he's pretty terrible. He might make it onto my list for those peak years.

Breaks and Collins had one blockbuster match and the rest were average to middling. Breaks was generally good at working with the teenagers. He has an impressive trilogy of matches with Young David (Davey Boy Smith) and the aforementioned Collins match. His match with Dynamite Kid is a short one fall catchweight bout and nothing special, but as for Collins I'm not really interested in watching him against anyone else for the rest of the television run, so for me there series was a definite carry job from Breaks. It was pretty much the last thing he did of note on ITV. Aside from their one great match, it just doesn't really compare with the best of Jim Breaks, that's all. But if you liked it then that's promising.

I think it was just Dave's way of highlighting that Taue wasn't as big a star as the other three or the New Japan guys, which he wasn't. I don't think anything pertaining to the retirement ceremony itself will play a factor in Japanese voters' decisions.

Somebody asked me recently if Sangre Chicana belongs in the HOF. Is there a reason why he's never been on the ballot?

At the risk of getting upset with Parv again about jazz, I think it's silly to force yourself to be that objective that you try to consider or represent styles you don't even like. I'm all for people broadening their horizons but there are limits. Let the fans of that particular style or worker push their case.

He's been around since '97, but he became Pequeño Damián 666 in 2005. His best singles opponent was Bam Bam, IMO.

I guess Caras is a stronger candidate than Murdoch based on the record gates he drew, though I'm not sure why a higher degree of research should go into Murdoch than it's seemingly necessary for Casas or the Misioneros, but Hamada? Murdoch seems like a bigger deal than Gran Hamada ever was.

I'd sooner vote for Demus 3:16 than any of these guys if we're being honest. The IWRG workers are all cool guys, but IWRG footage comes and goes too much for them to have a proper candidacy and they're not top 20-30 luchadores all time. With the CMLL guys, I could see people voting for some of those names. I wouldn't, but I don't think it's unreasonable.

I've seen so many disappointing Blue Panther matches that I sometimes wonder if he's overrated or if my expectations for him are simply too high. I don't think he's a great singles match worker, which would be my big knock on him.