ohtani's jacket

I don't see how anyone's going to force you to watch someone you don't want to, but if there's a pimping thread with a lot of activity and you've never seen that wrestler then you should probably check out a few of their matches.

Michel Allary vs. Johnny Stein (1960) Johnny Stein was a big, strong shaven headed German who bore an uncanny resemblance to Triple H. Michel Allary was the promising young heavyweight from the Lassartesse match whose career was cut short by injury. The first ten minutes of this was an enjoyable heavyweight contest. It was mostly strength holds, but it was tough, physical looking stuff that was well sold, and Stein was a beast. After a while, he began roughing Allary up and the bout became a bit shapeless, though it did succeed in drawing the ire of the crowd. Allary made various comeback attempts during the bout and dished out some retaliation before the big German was disqualified for repeatedly stomping Allary in the ropes. Allary lashed out after the bell choking Stein with a towel, which drew a healthy bloodlust from the crowd. A couple of policemen from 'Allo 'Allo! had to make sure things didn't get out of hand, and Stein must have been pleased with how the night went as he made his way back to the locker room. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more of that initial hard fought heavyweight contest, but the heat mongering was a decent enough spectacle.

I hope it gets a fair shake, and I say that as someone who wouldn't have Joshi workers as high this time round.

Kobashi is a terrible promo for what it's worth.

I'd be interested so long as people are committed to the project.

Rey Mysterio Jr and Eddie Guerrero weren't put in a position to have a big important match and they still managed it at Halloween Havoc. I agree that Regal never had an opportunity to have a match like Steamboat/Savage, but I think the argument should centre around whether he was capable.

Midcard workers can still have big matches. Regal had an opportunity on monthly PPVs to have big matches. Some people might argue that he accomplished that with Arn and Steamboat and Johnny B. Badd, but that's not my recollection from when we did the WCW poll.

El Dandy/Piloto Suicida/El Brazo vs. Negro Casas/Loverboy/Kung Fu (Los Angeles, CA 9/19/92) Vintage Casas of the Day gets requests! This WWA handheld was a request from Pro Wrestling Only poster Gregor. Gregor doesn't post much, but I've always admired his taste in lucha and his penchant for seeking out the hidden gems like we do on the Great Lucha blog, so I was rapt to get a message from him. Lucha house show matches are no different from other promotion's house shows. They're basically a stripped down version of what you see on TV. You get a bit of shtick, a few exchanges, a rudo beatdown segment and a couple of dives at the end, but they're generally more heat orientated and less physically demanding. This match was hurt by the fact that apart from Casas and Dandy none of the other participants were very good, including El Brazo who mailed his performance in from Mexico City. I was a bit disappointed that El Brazo wasn't that third good worker a trios match needs, like Mano Negra in that recent Dandy vs. Llanes trios match I reviewed, but I was probably confusing him with Brazo de Oro as El Brazo was always the least of the brothers. Though to be fair, Dandy wasn't up for much in this bout. He seemed more interested in emulating the fighting stance of whatever third or fourth generation UWF bootlegs he was getting and throwing open handed palm strikes. The match was meant to be a bit of fun so I don't want to be too critical, but it would have been better if they'd built it around the Casas vs. Dandy rivalry. Instead, it was an opportunity for the technicos to shine with some build for Lover Boy vs. Piloto Suicida tacked on at the end. They ended up having a mask vs. mask match at some point where Lover Boy was castrated, but it was quite literally an afterthought here. What I did like about this is that we got to see on a house show just how amazingly charismatic Casas was in his prime. The guy simply exuded charisma in a way few wrestlers do. And he was constantly busy working in small details and riffs. I'm now convinced that he was better than Dandy during this time period. What set him apart here were the bumps he was prepared to take on an LA house show. They weren't huge bumps but they raised the level of the match and the standard of the performances. Plus it's fun to hear a tape trader from '92 gushing over how good he is. So it's definitely vintage Casas of the day.

The Ultimate Warrior was not a big match worker. A "big match worker" in my parlance is a worker capable of creating a match that reaches a certain size or scale where you feel like you're watching something big. It doesn't have to be a big long epic. You could accomplish the same thing in 15 or 20 minutes if you're good enough. Regal seldom worked this way. The Larry Z match was an example of him putting on a really exciting big time television match, but most of his output was smaller, more detailed, more intimate work.

Being a big match worker takes skill and a certain level of ability. The fact that not every worker can do it means it's an attribute. How much you value that attribute is up to you, but I think it's a brilliant skill to have. Who doesn't love a big time match?

No, but it might exemplify wider reasons for why Savage was so far ahead of Steamboat in terms of drawing power. While Steamer was possibly stuck in his own bubble (as evidenced by his distaste for the WM match), Savage may have been more open to different possibilities and ways of doing things. Also, Savage clearly put a lot more thought and care into his character and presentation, while Ricky was sort of all over the place with that (from a scientific, no-frills family man to a kung-fu warrior to The Dragon with the fire, etc.). Of course, part of that is probably because of the power each wrestler wielded - Savage clearly had more say-so over his character than Steamboat would have. I love Steamboat as much as anyone else here, but I think it's healthy to analyze the shortcomings of some of these "sacred cow" wrestlers instead of pretending everything they did was perfect and above reproach. I don't believe in sacred cows either, but I suspect the way Savage presented himself had a lot to do with his intensity. I can't say that Steamboat didn't care as much, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was something Savage obsessed over. It seems to me that the reason why Steamboat didn't enjoy working with Savage as much as say Flair was because Savage took planning things out to an extreme. It wasn't so much that they wrestled the match a bunch of times on house shows. They had notebooks where each spot was numbered. The pair of them memorised the match to the point where they could call out a number and the other guy would recite the rest of the match. That's so far removed from how wrestlers usually work that obviously Steamboat had more issues with it than he's ever revealed in public, certainly for Austin and Regal to react so strongly to their private conversations with Ricky. I like both workers, but I would take Steamboat's body of work over Savages because of Dangerous Alliance era WCW. The fact that people have to come up with smallish Regal bouts kind of proves the point that he never had a match like Savage/Steamboat. He was essentially a TV worker. A great one, but a TV worker nonetheless. I think my favourite bout of his was the Larry Z one.

This was an enjoyable listen with the time really flying by. A couple of points: 1) Surely, you didn't know anything about what was going on in the 80s outside of the Apter mags because you were too young to subscribe to the Observer or to be aware of the dirt sheets. 2) Wasn't Shawn calling himself the Showstopper and Mr. Wrestlemania prior to his first retirement? Shawn was always divisive, but he was considered a GOAT candidate amongst North American wrestlers prior to his comeback if for no other reason that he was a candidate for best wrestler of the 90s. 3) Modern NJPW is overrated, but so is modern WWE and CMLL. It seems to me there's an inconsistency going on here.

Regal was never positioned to be in a match as important as Steamboat/Savage and WCW never had a show anywhere near as big as Wrestlemania III. I don't think Regal was a big match worker, but take away the setting and Steamboat/Savage isn't held in quite so high regard.

I adore Regal, but has he EVER had a match as good as Savage/Steamboat? Steamboat himself was down on the match for years because it was pre-planned, which really comes across as one of those dumb things wrestlers value that don't actually enhance the product in any way. Might explain why Savage drew a boatload of money and Steamer never really did. I very much doubt that Savage drawing more than Steamboat had anything to do with their working styles. Of course wrestlers who care about their craft are going to respect the ability to work on the fly the same way musicians respect other musicians' ability to improvise and method actors contrasted from the star factory types who memorized their lines and hit their marks. Steamboat obviously didn't enjoy working that way. It's no different to watching a film you think is great only to find the people involved didn't enjoy working with each other. Obviously, it shouldn't matter to fans of the match, but I can understand the wrestlers' POV.

I don't think it's ever been clearly established whether Walton was an ITV employee or an independent contractor. Nevertheless, Walton could bury a match with the best of them. It's actually quite fun listening for Waltonisms, but I think it's bollocks that he got into the WON HOF without so much as a single bit of critical appraisal.

WON readers really liked Mr. Fuji.

Colin Bennett vs. Tony Caine (11/7/74) This was Tony Caine's television debut for Joint Promotions. He was doing a Hell's Angels knockoff with the peroxide blonde hair and effeminate mannerisms, but didn't have the flamboyance to go all the way with it. I don't know why they bothered giving him this gimmick as he was tattooed and nowhere near as pretty as Barnes or Street. In fact, he was so committed to either his amateur club or pro-wrestling tuition that he had a tattoo of two wrestlers grappling inked on his chest. Anyway, after some weak Hell's Angels shtick he got himself DQ'ed. Not an auspicious debut, but perhaps not deserving of the panning Walton gave it. Caine appears to have never wrestled on television again while Bennett would take his fireman background to ridiculous extremes with a gimmick straight out of Postman Pat. Bobby Graham vs. Bob Abbott (11/7/74) Walton was still on the Bob Abbott bandwagon here, but what an odd match. It was largely dominated by the heel Bobby Graham with a few brief flurries from Abbott. It's rare that you see a heel initiate the action the whole way through, and with Walton trying to paint Graham out to be a wrestler better suited to tags it was baffling when that dominance turned into an easy one fall victory. So much for Abbott and his potential. Ivan Penzekoff vs. John Cox (11/7/74) This was the main event of a pretty crappy Leamington Spa taping. John Cox was a real lump of a man and Walton didn't give Penzekoff much of a chance by going up a weight to face him. Penzekoff started off with a bit of light comedy, but then took over the bout to the point where Walton was complaining about how Cox was wrestling. Cox was pretty awkward looking, but he did hit some nice body checks and a headbutt during his comeback. Walton didn't like this bout at all and even called it slow. It ended with Penzekoff getting himself disqualified Peter Rann style. The second disqualification of the taping. The fans walked out as soon as it was over. I wonder if they put Penzekoff on last because there was a bar tab in Leamington like there was in Bristol and Croydon.

Fair enough, it's a shame nobody's ever gone through 90s lucha year by year.

What do you think of Kent Walton? Because in the last three WoS matches I watched he rubbished one guy's television debut, outright said a tag wrestler wasn't a good singles competitor, gave a smaller man no hope going up a weight, and criticised a big man for not wrestling the bout properly. And that's from a Hall of Famer.

I imagine the big one is how light a wrestler works.

Is there a reason why there is so little lucha on the set?

I watched this a while back. It looks like I didn't like it as much as their '97 bout, but here's what I wrote: "Very cool bout that was somewhere between their pure shoot style work and a longer juniors style bout. Greco is one of my all-time favourite mat workers and Ishikawa is the grittiest fighter in the history of pro graps. Loved the Greco strikes in this, especially the shoot style dropkick in the corner."

Pirata Morgan, Hombre Bala y Verdugo vs. Atlantis, Angel Azteca y Ringo Mendoza (3/88) This marks the first appearance on the set of Angel Azteca, who would go on to play a prominent role in EMLL's booking during 1989 and 1990. Azteca, whose real name was Juan Manuel Zuniga, began his career in 1980 under the ring name of El Charro and later Charro de Jalisco, a gimmick he would later recreate in AAA when Pena went through a phase of repackaging everyone. He was from the Durango region of the Comarca Lagunera area and was an "El luchador lagunero" the same as Blue Panther and many others. In fact, Panther and Azteca shared a common maestro in Hector Lopez. Like most luchadores, he started out on the independent scene claiming regional titles such as the Laguna Lightweight Title and the Arena Victoria Tag Team Titles. He rose through the ranks and took the Mexican National Cruiserweight Title in 1986 as Charro de Jalisco, a championship which was created in 1983 as the national equivalent of the overseas junior heavyweight titles, but which petered out for some unknown reason. At some point in the mid to late 80s (I hesitate to guess at the timeline), Zuniga adopted the Angel Azteca persona, a gimmick which brought him tremendous success in the short term. I'm not sure when he began working for CMLL full time, but it looks to have been sometime in 1987. In 1988 they began pairing him with Atlantis and he received the "Mogur push" racing straight up the card. On March 6th, Atlantis and Azteca won the Mexican National Tag Team Championship from Los Infernales MS-1 and Masakre. On February 26, 1989 Ángel Azteca became a double champion when he defeated Bestia Salvaje for the Mexican National Welterweight Championship. Two months later he became a triple champion when he defeated Emilio Charles, Jr. to win the NWA World Middleweight Championship. One can only assume the booker behind this was Juan Herrera as "Angel Azteca" wasn't a Pena style gimmick and Zuniga had more in common with the Velasco trained wrestlers that Herrera preferred to push than the talent Pena advocated. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, Pena would end up repackaging Azteca in the short lived Los Folkloricos trio; a decision which Solar agonised over as it meant they couldn't return to their existing gimmicks in AAA if the trio failed. We'll have plenty more to say about Azteca before the set is over, but sadly he is no longer with us. He died in 2007 of a sudden heart attack shortly after competing in the main event of a small show in Campeche, leaving behind a wife and five children. Verdugo, Spanish for executioner, was the real life brother of Morgan and Bala and stepped into the Los Bucaneros when Jerry Estrada broke off to reinvent himself as the Jerry Estrada we know today. Verdugo's run with his brothers was unarguably the highlight of his career and like Bala he slipped into a journeyman role once the Los Infernales were reformed with Morgan, though he was a worth scalp for wrestlers they were trying to milk something out of like Mogur or Huracán Sevilla, and a lot of fun as Troglodita.

I do 180s on wrestlers all time. I should probably learn not to be such a judgmental prick in the first place, but it's fun changing your mind. In Euro wrestling, I've done a slight 180 on charisma-less heavyweights like Pete Roberts and Ray Steele who I now enjoy for their wrestling skills and workers like Bobby Ryan and Zoltan Boscik, whom I completely dismissed at first. I've warmed up to Rocco over the years, did a complete 180 on my impression of my first impressions of Brian Maxine and gave Skull Murphy, Bob Anthony and just about everyone else a second chance. All that remains is for me to change my tune on my hated triumvirate of Naylor, Sanders and Collins. In lucha, lately I've changed my mind about foreigners in lucha. I'd still rather watch Mexican workers, but Ultimo had some great stints there and Norman Smiley was a ton of fun. Ultimo is a guy who I think was better in Mexico than he was in Japan though that may have been entirely due to Negro Casas. I used to think he was really weak in his first CMLL stint and didn't look good until 1997, but I've really enjoyed his 1993 run while doing the Vintage Negro Casas of the Day series. Give me some 180s.

El Dandy y Negro Casas vs. Corazon De Leon y Ultimo Dragon, CMLL 7/16/93 Whose bright idea was it to give this 40 minutes? People often complain about how short and meaningless the first two falls in lucha are, but three falls of equal length makes for really dull matches. When Jericho was in it was wrestled like an American match. When Ultimo was in it was wrestled like a Japanese match. Dandy was a technico and Casas a rudo, but the match wasn't remotely story driven. It was a workrate match through and through despite Felino giving Casas stick for teaming with a technico in the segment which Raging Noodles translated. When it was over, the crowd threw money in the ring to show their appreciation. Being a tightwad, I probably wouldn't have thrown any money, but I can see why the crowd did as the bout was different from what they were used to. (Actually, I probably would have gotten into it live as I generally don't care how good the matches are during live wrestling.) Jericho couldn't mat wrestle to save his life so he and Dandy went with a side headlock. It was cool, but can you imagine Doobie in your funk? Casas attacked the leg and looked like he was imitating his hero Choshu. He was really at his athletic peak here. Ultimo showed phenomenal speed between the ropes and Casas almost matched it with his running dropkick. It was a shame he entered CMLL just as the Televisa shit was about to go down with Pena. Can you imagine what he could have contributed in 1990? Then again, someone else may have missed out like Azteca or Satanico or Emilio. Plus he was able to rule the roost a bit with everyone defecting to AAA. Casas managed to make Jericho's strikes halfway decent, which was the only good thing Jericho contributed, and Dandy was slightly disappointing against Ultimo, so I'd have to say Casas looked better than his rival here. It did help that he had natural charisma with Ultimo, but Dandy was going through a pudgy stage where his work began to suffer. Aside from the match not really being lucha, the two other problems I had with it were that the finishes to each fall were weak and there were too many submissions that felt like restholds. If you're going to wrestle long falls, you better make the finish to each spectacular so that the momentum carries through to the next caida, but they fell short of that here. There was no intrinsic reason for it go go long; it just did. In fairness, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, and in the 1993 CMLL landscape it probably stands out as one of the better bouts, or at least one of the more ambitious ones. But I'd rather watch lucha.