ohtani's jacket

I wouldn't rule it out, but was it genuine heat or the kind of boos Jumbo would get?

The majority of people don't even bother to watch Big Daddy's matches. They hear about how bad he was and it becomes accepted wisdom. You always read about how Daddy would stay on the apron while his younger, more talented partner did all the work, but that's generally not true and doesn't highlight the actual structural problems with the tag matches, which was that they didn't have a FIP structure to them. It's also why you never hear about the technical match he had with John Elijah or how much more effective he was a heel in the 70s. But aside from people not considering Daddy's work carefully, it doesn't involve the same amount of interpretation as the Taue example. You can hear a Daddy promo and understand it, you can listen to Walton on commentary and understand it, and ultimately you can read what historians and other wrestlers say about him. It's not easy to do that with Taue and therefore the metrics become how many Budokan shows did he headline or how many of his matches were rated **** or above. That's not a knock on Soup, who's a great guy, but it's problematic when you know everything about a US candidate (his mic skills, his ability to work an angle, his persona, his reputation, the whole shebang) and you're in the dark about another. I don't really want to go down this route, but the whole concept of Taue being a heel in the traditional US sense is iffy at best. That's why I questioned the larger than life personality thing because it seems to me people come to AJPW from their own background and look to place a heel/face dynamic on it and then ascribe all sorts of things to the matches that may or may not be true, which is fine if you're looking for narrative, but not so kosher if you're claiming one reason Taue stood out was that he was a really great heel.

What we do is on message forums. The WON HOF should be held to a higher standard. I would never advocate a British candidate based on my own impressions of watching him on tape, because they're my impressions, they often fly in the face of accepted wisdom, and they may in fact be wrong. This whole Taue was lazy/not very good until '95 vs. Taue was always good argument is pure message board fodder. If you want to say Taue was nonathletic, then what was his athletic background? What did people think of him as an athlete? How good a sumo wrestler was he? You want to say he was lazy, what did Baba think of him? What did his contemporaries think of him? What did his sumo trainers think of him? You want to praise him as a great dickish heel then tell me about it. What was great about him? I'm sure people could write a tome about why Flair was a great heel. I don't think message board opinions are enough and I don't think tape watching is enough. You can't just say oh well I saw this really great performance from Taue in 1990 so clearly he was better than people claimed at that stage. That's just an opinion. You've got to do the research or ask people who might know people who can help.

How can people think they know enough about Taue to vote him into a Hall of Fame simply by watching him on tape? That would never fly for an American candidate. Could you imagine a Japanese fan writing about Bobby Eaton's character or persona without ever hearing a promo from him?

In Los Folkloricos, Solar was El Mariachi, Angel Azteca was Charro de Jalisco and Halcon 78 was El Mexicano. I read recently that Solar had several sleepless nights agonising over whether to agree to the gimmick change because it would prevent him from going back to the Solar gimmick in AAA.

Thanks to Phi Rippa for uploading it many moons ago.

Not sure if you meant it literally, but it was a wager match.

It's early days in the once a decade revisit of the Smarkschoice Greatest Wrestler Ever poll, but so far plenty of people have Santo pinned as their number one luchador. Santo's an easy pick, but is it the right pick? I cued up a half dozen matches to see how much greatness I could find. El Hijo del Santo y Black Shadow Jr. vs. Octagon y Fuerza Guerrera, Monterrey 12/15/91 Relevos Suicidas is such a waste of time. Even in a bout like this where the action isn't so bad it eats up what would ordinarily be the first two falls of the apuesta match. There's a theory going that Black Shadow Jr. intentionally fouled to get a shot at Santo's mask, but I don't think that's true at all. If that were the angle, he would have fouled straight away instead of getting valuable energy sapped by his contest with Fuerza. If you watch closely, he tries to pin Fuerza after the low blow and is in as much disbelief as Santo over the ref's call. I think it was pretty clearly a rudo reflex. On the boards we discussed how people never tire of the Santo formula because of how good his execution is, and I don't think it's possible to tire of his bleeding either. His blood soaked mask is as iconic an image as Ric Flair's crimson mask and a visual you immediately associate with lucha. Santo's bleeding here provided a series of fantastic visuals, it was just a pity about the rest of the fall. As far as Santo's apuesta matches go, this was fairly weak. BSJr didn't do enough to make him bleed. It was some enthusiastic assistance from Perro Aguayo that caused Santo to bleed so much, and he didn't wait anywhere near long enough to make his comeback. The intensity of a comeback is in direct proportion to the length of the beating, and Santo wasn't in nearly enough jeopardy from the blood loss. The cameraman failed to capture BSJr's big dive adequately; and for a guy who was so good at working his formula, Santo didn't didn't place his signature spots anywhere near as well as he usually did. The finish was a prime example. It was begging for the camel clutch or something equally as iconic and instead it was an inside cradle. Legend has it that the finish to the Santo/Black Shadow Sr. fight was the camel clutch, so it surprised me that they didn't reprise that piece of history. Ultimately, it was worth watching because of the blood, but it was hard to know why it fell short of Santo's best apuesta work. Was it because the first two falls were wasted on Relevos Suicidas, or because BSJr wasn't that great at dictating the bout? Perhaps it was because Santo didn't stick to his formula. More importantly, how many other average apuesta matches did he have in his long career? Probably more than we'd like to think. El Hijo del Santo vs. Psicosis, Promo Azteca 10/3/97 i had to curb my expectations for this as it was only a house show match, but Santo was in good form around this time so I still had some hopes for it. The early mat work was well executed by Santo, but mat work was never the strongest part of Psicosis' game, so it wasn't very competitive. Psicosis' strengths were his bumping and stooging. He took some incredible bumps in this, but his stooging was all crotch chops and pulling the finger. The Psicosis I'm used to had a better sense of humour than that. He won the first fall in weak fashion then missed a lunging charge at Santo and did his shoulder first bump into the ring post. Santo seized the initiative and won the second fall with ease. At that point I was ready to chalk it up as house show fare, but they worked some exciting dives into final fall, which had to have pleased the paying customer. The finish didn't do Psicosis justice, and I came out of it thinking he hadn't really progressed in his struggle with Santo, but that's Psicosis in a nutshell really. He was a limited worker who never really grew or progressed past the point where he had some decent shtick. El Hijo del Santo/Angel Azteca vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Psicosis, AAA 2/13/94 There was no messing around here as Psicosis was disqualified for fouling Santo before he'd even removed his jacket. The rudos got stuck into their work with a lengthy beat down that saw Santo dragged around the ring by his mask (but no blood.) This lacked the intensity of say Emilio Charles and Satanico in the recent Dandy vs. Fiera build I watched. Psicosis wound up removing the hood, which led to more sluggish moments where Santo had to protect his identity (always an awkward part of any mask ripping bout.) Santo ran to the back to change masks and returned with a vengeance. He went after Psicosis with a chair, which was worse than anything Psicosis had done to him, but that's wrestling for you. The upshot of all this was that Santo removed Psicosis mask to reveal that the mighty buffalo mane was only part of the mask (always a shock to me), and there was a surreal finish to the segment where Psicosis came back to ringside in a Santo mask and tried to continue the fight before cutting a promo in the full Psicosis body suit and Santo mask. On one hand, this was a regular TV taping and not meant to be a hidden gem from the 90s. On the other hand, it was the build to a title match and they were throwing out challenges. But even ignoring that, this wasn't exactly great. If I'd thought it was a legitimately great angle I would have praised it to the moon, instead I would probably rank it alongside other Santo vs. Psicosis disappointments or consistently weak Santo in AAA material. El Hijo del Santo/Super Muñeco/Angel Azteca vs. Satanico/Espectro Jr./Ice Killer, AAA 8/1/94 This was a mediocre trios that could have been from any time and any place in lucha history. Mediocre trios are par for the course in lucha, and even Santo can't shine in all of them, but it's surprisingly that his signature spots were absent from a match where they would have been most useful. It was up to Angel Azteca to provide the highspots instead. Santo wasn't exactly apron hugging, but if you believe in Ric Flair's story about going to see Ray Stevens and not seeing his signature spots then this was Santo's Stevens match, which would have been okay if he'd done something else that was cool, but he didn't. I'll you this though -- Satanico vs. Santo was a match the world needed to see. It's just like lucha to not provide what the world needs. El Hijo del Santo/Lizmark/Eddy Guerrero vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Jerry Estrada/Marabunta, AAA 12/18/92 This was like every other AAA trios match of its era. It started off with a fall that wasn't far off classic trios structure. The match-ups were solid without being spectacular, and Santo didn't stand out one way or another, but there were little touches like Fuerza vs. Lizmark which were only available here while everyone was in their prime. Then it started to drag. It went on and on until finally you were waiting for it to end. Waiting is better than praying I suppose, but these long falls were a killer in AAA. Fuerza Guerrera/Blue Panther/Espanto Jr./Psicosis vs. El Hijo del Santo/Octagon/El Mariachi/El Mexicano, 8/12/94 This was everything that was good and bad about AAA in the same match. The opening fall and a half was high energy, up tempo stuff with a bunch of great exchanges. It threatened to turn into a brawl at times, but kept on the straight and narrow and there was enough action in the first fall to fill an entire match. Santo stuck to his formula and tellingly looked better than in any of the other trios I watched. The rudos were pinballing left, right and center, and if I never get tired of the Emilio monkey flip and charge into the backbreaker, the same can be said for Espanto's bump from the slingshot. What a great worker that guy was. Everything was going swimmingly until the rudos decided to slow things down and give Mariachi a working over. That immediately changed the tone of the match and frankly went on too long. The technicos made a brief comeback at the end, but by that point I was checking how much time was left. After slowing things to a crawl, the rudos were DQ'ed for excessive rudoism and the match was in the books. Why they had to stretch these things out to half an hour with disparate tones in each half is beyond me. The first fall was draining enough without dragging things out. Psicosis did kill Santo dead with a senton to the outside from high off the top turnbuckle. That was a crazy spot made all the more reckless by Psicosis' natural awkwardness. IIRC. this led to a return match which I reviewed somewhere on this blog, but man, talk about a manuscript that badly needed an edit. Some final thoughts on Santo: Santo was a great worker who had a lot of memorable matches, but he wasn't the type of performer where you can watch any of this matches and get something out of it. He looked great when he stuck to his formula and struggled to make an impression when he didn't. He wasn't a details guy like Satanico, Chicana or Cota. He was all about execution. For that reason, I can't really see him as my number one ranked luchador, though it's a different story if you're talking about highly ranked technicos. I don't mean to imply that Santo was inconsistent or overrated somehow, rather that because of his working style and the fact he was a technico and enmascarado, he doesn't quite stand out like some of the wrestling geniuses in Mexico. At least not on random viewings.

I can't see how anyone could follow his shoot style career and not find it an utter disappointment. The guy was one of the most under utilised, misused talents ever. I'm not even a huge fan, but it was ridiculous how little he was pushed. People who like him have always tended to really like him. I did enjoy a couple of the barn burners he had in UWF-i when the mood struck him.

Sting vs. Meng. It does more than rhyme. Those matches right there are your answer about whether he could main event.

I want to say he's the best lucha worker of this century, but he's really only been given long singles match opportunities since the business down turn. I think he's been the best guy in Mexico for the past few years at least since we stopped getting so much IWRG stuff. What really needs to happen is an evaluation of the first decade of this century even if it's just a bunch of lightning matches.

My number one pick. I remember I wrote an impassioned defence of her that impressed at least one person. I have no idea about her this time. It's hard to muster the same kind of enthusiasm for Joshi as I had then as it's in the past and done and dusted. I suspect I will have Chigusa higher this time round.

A much better worker in 1993-95 than I ever would have ever expected held back only by the shittiness of the booking. His aggressive, stiff, shoot style matwork was a sight to behold, and in a promotion where work was more important he might have had a nice resume from that period. He also has the Ultimo Guerrero match from 2004, which I'm yet to review but is one of the best title matches of this century and hands down the best thing Ultimo Guerrero has ever been in. But his forte is really brawling. He may be one of the best lucha brawlers of all-time. I can't say I like the garbagy crap in a lot of his matches, but the visuals he creates are outstanding. Definitely a guy who needs to be looked at.

Antonio Inoki was a larger than life personality. So did Riki Choshu. Taue was a country boy who'd rather be fishing than wrestling. The rep on Taue early in his career was that he was lazy. They stuck him with Jumbo and he has every bit the look of a prospect who's not coming along as well as they'd like. I love the guy, but the blank state he had much of the time is not indicative of a larger than life personality. He became more grizzled later on, but people new to AJPW latch onto him because they're looking for a heel/face dynamic. That's my take on it, anyway.

Since when did Taue have a larger than life personality? Sometimes it feels like people create their own characters for these guys.

It depends on how great I think my personal favourite is. I think Steve Grey is the best babyface I've seen and has the best body of work of any of the WoS wrestlers, and besides all that he's a personal favourite. I would gladly place him above any number of all-time greats. Fujiwara and Satanico will go higher than Hansen, for example, because I like them more. Where the issue comes in is at the fringes. I like Mocho Cota more than most wrestlers who have been nominated thus far, but voting for him feels a bit hipster. I'm a bit torn about it though as it pains me to vote for a guy like Kobashi who I just don't care about.

Sorry, should have been more clear about that. It's the British term for babyface.

Davis referred to Legs Langevin as a boy in the one fight I saw, so I'd write it off as a colloquialism at this point.

It's crass because he didn't do anything offensive enough to be spoken about like that. So you don't like rudo ref shtick, I don't see the need to get tough about it. It was Pena who put the gimmick on him, not shtick he came up with himself. He's generally regarded as the best of the rudo refs. I don't understand what's so offensive about the spot you described unless you find the whole deal bullshit, but I've seen what happened when Pena had complete freedom in AAA and your ire is directed at the wrong ref.

Wagner, really? There was a brief period where he went to Japan and developed into a very good worker, which he brought back with him to CMLL but then he decided he'd be better off as the Mexican version of the Rock, which put plenty of dinero in his pocket, but gets old fast as Matt can attest to. He's a very capable worker. I liked his last major CMLL run and some of the endless stuff with Parka, and some of his pre-97 work is good albeit a watered down version of his father's act, but I'd like to see a defence of Wagner as he appears to be here on name value alone.

Japanese crowds tended to prefer outlandish American gimmicks. It's a knock on Steamboat I guess, but the patchiness of his post Mid-Atlantic, pre-Dangerous Alliance WCW work is a bigger one.

I'm not sure if it counts as meaningful, but his act with Princess Paula was extremely over in the waning days of wrestling on British television even if I personally dislike it compared to his Riot Squad days.

It was a shame his knees gave out on him. A couple of more good RINGS bouts and he'd be a surefire thing.

He has the body of work to be voted for if people are inclined. You only need to watch the Takada match Childs mentioned as well as the brilliant Funaki match from 1990 to see how well his aura played into big time shoot style bouts.

Rudge's early stuff is okay. He looks a bit like a rugby prop and is a fairly good hand. But my gawd, when he decides to shave his balding head and grow a moustache, he turns into one of the biggest ass kickers in wrestling history. He's a prototype Dave Finlay or Steve Regal. If you like those wrestlers then there's no reason why you shouldn't be familiar with Terence Rudge. Go on Twitter and Regal will tell you himself. Older British fans tend to stop giving a shit about WoS as soon as Daddy's on top, so they don't quite rate Rudge as highly as we do. There's also an issue of him spending a lot on time on the continent so he's away from television a lot, but these are his best bouts: Terry Rudge vs. Marty Jones (11/30/76) Terry Rudge vs. Alan Kilby (6/18/81) Terry Rudge vs. Pete Roberts (3/21/83) Terry Rudge vs. Dalibar Singh (10/11/83) Terry Rudge vs. Tom Tyrone (11/20/84) Terry Rudge vs. Franz van Buyten (Hamburg 10/1/87) Johnny Saint vs. Terry Rudge (10/8/87) Steve Regal vs. Terry Rudge (Hamburg 10/7/88)