ohtani's jacket

Francis Louis vs. Bob Plantin (1968) This was the match that had people thinking it was George Kidd vs. Modesto Aledo, which did take place in the 60s but at the Royal Albert Hall in London. To add to the confusion, ALPRA uploaded it twice, the first time with the correct names and the second time calling it "LUTTE CLASSIQUE à l ' Elysée Montmartre en 1968." L'Élysée Montmartre being the famous music venue. While it may not be rare George Kidd footage, it's still a decent enough bout, though nothing too revolutionary when it comes to studying lutte. There's a lot of cool wristlock takedowns and other tricked out moves, but loses focus a bit with a running joke between Plantin and referee Jean Louis Maresse.

The bar for wrestling tournaments is pretty low. The 1995 Champions Carnival and the 1993 Japan Grand Prix had decent reps back in the day.

Skull Murphy vs. Jim Moser (1/26/88) Here's another reason why wrestling lost television: too many veterans. While it was great to see Moser back on television and everything, he was a guy who had been kicking round since the early 60s. When you compare that to the Killer Bees, or whatever random WWF was airing, British wrestling looked outdated and obsolete and it was hard to imagine it surviving in this format as the pensioners began to drop. You could get away with it in the 70s because there were so many television stars, but ASW really diluted the talent pool and it says a lot that Joint Promotions were booking guys like Moser. The match was marginally better than the Singh bout, at least when Moser was on offence, but it was heavily clipped and had a shitty finish where Murphy won two straight with his gator submission without bothering to tease a Moser comeback.

Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Skull Murphy (3/5/87) I thought I'd watch a bunch of matches from a guy I've never really given a fair shake to, and that's Skull Murphy, but after watching this I'm not so sure I should. This has to be one of the most dull, flat and boring WoS bouts I've seen. Murphy is a brawler and a quasi Alan Dennison style strongman, but he puts nothing into his strikes not even a grunt or a groan or a pantomime "grrrr." The length wasn't an issue here as they got plenty of time for a 1987 bout; it was just such a shitty caricature of a heel vs. face bout. It wasn't all Murphy's fault, as Singh, whom I like, was about as thrilling as stepping in dog turd. He wasn't about to take Murphy places he wouldn't ordinarily go, hence the mediocrity. I should probably eject now on this little mini-project, but I'll give it a few more matches to see if Murphy surprises me.

The first trios in the build-up to this is so very, very good.

Y'know, I never really thought about that. That is annoying.

If you ask me, people watch too much maestro Casas and not enough of his vintage work, so here's a new feature on the Great Lucha blog that will hopefully encourage people to check out his glory years. Ciclon Ramirez, Oro, Ultimo Dragon vs. Bestia Salvaje, Felino, Negro Casas, CMLL 3/12/93 This was part of the three-week build to the 3/26 UWA World Middleweight Championship bout between Casas and El Ultimo Dragon. Casas vs. Ultimo Dragon isn't the first match up that springs to mind when you think of guys who click, but this was some seriously great TV. Ultimo is a guy who I've always said wasn't very good in his early Mexico runs, but I need to take a good look at what I wrote and apologise to my parents because this was shit hot. The match started off with a series of lucha exchanges between Ultimo Dragon and Casas, Bestia and Oro and Felino and Ciclon Ramirez. None of the match ups were show stealing, but deliberately so, as they were really giving folks a tease of how good these match ups could be. And as teases go, this was the desert before you've had the main. Just decadent. Halfway through the primera caida, they teased the dissension between Casas and Felino that would eventually lead to the great towel throwing angle, but here they attacked the technicos instead and I was reminded of how inventive rudo beat downs used to be. Casas went after Ultimo on the outside and split his legs like a wishbone. As the rudos came up with new ways to work over Oro, Dragon had his leg stretched out over the front row seats receiving attention. He was in no mood to head to the back and instead hobbled over to the technico corner. The second fall technico comeback ended up being Ultimo hooking Casas' leg, dragging him through the ropes and kicking the shit out of him until he would up with his leg stuck between the front row seats. It was a tremendous fiery comeback from the technicos, which of course the rudos claimed was too violent. The finish was the most fired up three way moonsault/hurricanrana/enzuigiri pinfall combination you'll ever see; and while Casas' enzuigiri bump probably wouldn't fly in Ultimo's homeland, his face plant was done with all the panache of Ric Flair in the Royal Rumble. A schmoz seemed on the cards when Casas faked a foul in the final caida. It was touch and go for a second as the refs gave serious thought to disqualifying Ultimo, but sanity prevailed and we got to see Ciclon's tope and Oro's top rope plancha; the tope alone being worth the price of admission. Finally, it came down to Ultimo v. Negro, and they worked a classic sudden death exchange. The speed with which Casas moved and the height he got on each bump was breathtaking. The match could have swung either way, but Ultimo came up trumps on a dragon suplex and Arena Mexico lost its collective shit. Like I said, Casas vs. Dragon -- not a natural match-up -- but this was sensational and Vintage Casas of the Day is off to a very good start.

Chigusa Nagayo vs. Akira Hokuto (3/19/89) This is raw footage without any commentary that lets you hear how over Chigusa was even at the end of her run. It's all in the past now, but I wish Chigusa had gone ahead with the Kandori match she flirted with. That would have been a great match if both participants had been willing to make the other look good. Hokuto didn't stand much of a chance here, but she gave it a real stab. Chigusa had to dig a little deeper than she would have expected and there was a bit more sting in her offence. The finish was especially great and really put over the effort Hokuto put in. One thing Japanese crowds love is someone who doesn't quit and they managed to portray that. A very effective veteran vs. young girl match.

Jean Ménard vs. Pierre Mercier Colour footage of a house show match. Pierre Mercier was a skinny young fella and this was like the catch equivalent of those 1980s World of Sport bouts where veterans would wrestle the "boy apprentices" such as Kid McCoy or Richie Brooks. Menard showed his class once again, but it was a fairly straight forward match and not a particularly great carry or anything like that.

Gilbert Cesca/René Ben Chemoul vs. Chéri Bibi/Pierre Bernaert This looked like it was from some sort of 70s or 80s retrospective as it kept cutting back to colour footage of what may have been Ben Chemoul talking about the match. Cheri Bibi is a great name for a heel. Every time Couderc called his name I got a kick out of it. The match was pretty close to what you'd associate with classic 50s and 60s pro-wrestling w/ the heels bumping and stooging and the babyfaces working athletic payback spots. Bernaert got his head caught in the ropes at one point, and Bibi did the classic Andre caught up in the ropes, and the faces made them pay with slingshots to the gut and dropkicks off the top rope. Fun match with some neat comedy, but nothing distinctly Euro.

Minoru Suzuki was outstanding in that AJ Styles match. I still have a hard time reconciling his feral look with the cocksure kid with the pompadour, but it's great he's embraced his inner mongrel. I loved his strikes in this match, especially the apron spot where it looked like he was going to do the Perro Aguayo Lou Thesz Press, but instead just kicked Styles. It's hard not to like a match where there's finger manipulation, especially when a finger gun taunt gets turned into a finger hold, and I thought Styles a great job of selling both the arm and finger damage. I'm not a fan of the fancy little flourishes Styles adds to every move, but they made for some great counters here with Suzuki catching the flailing arms. The match should have ended on that arm breaker as that was the nastiest looking hold I've seen in forever, but the desperation Styles Clash looked great, especially the way he only got half of it. Suzuki's initial counter to the Styles Clash was fantastic as well. The ankle lock reversals and the strike exchange at the end are modern day tropes, but just about anything can work in pro-wrestling if it's exciting enough. Even the lamest of run-ins couldn't prevent this from being a cracking match. Incidentally, is it just me or is New Japan's audience predominantly middle aged?

I'm not a massive fan of Backlund -- like I wouldn't rate him as one of my all-time favourite guys or anything like that -- but he was really good at working those headlock spots. Maybe not so much the grinding, but switching out of the headlock into something interesting then going back to the headlock. He was really good at that sort of thing. I also don't think anybody in the NWA was a significantly better mat wrestler.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tomohiro Ishii (7/31/14) * This was all right, but nothing to write home about. * The way they shot it was kind of strange as a lot of it was done from ringside. This made some of their strikes look better than usual and a few of them look even more business exposing, but overall it made the strike exchanges seem different, which is a plus. * Tanahashi apparently injured himself the night before, but it was hard to pin point that as the reason for why the match failed to fire. I did like the big headbutt Ishii landed towards the end and the sliding lariat, but other than that my impression of this was a lot of sling blades and a couple of leg whips for good measure. Not really an inspired performance from Tanahashi. * I don't understand how people can think Ishii is the best worker in Japan, let alone the world, when he's so limited. That's not a knock on people who do, and I freely admit that I have no idea who the best worker in Japan is at the moment, but he seems like a cult figure to me and not a super worker. * I'd go ** 1/2 stars on this one. The commentator name dropping Buzz Sawyer in 2014 was cool.

Crush Girls vs. Calgary Typhoons (Yumi Ogura/Mika Komatsu) (3/4/89) The version of this I watched was strangely edited even though it appeared to be from AJW Classics. This struck me as a terrible booking decision on All Japan Women's part. Why put the belts on the Crush Girls when you know Chigusa is just about to retire? With the void Chigusa is about to leave, the last thing you need is to undermine your unheralded midcard by having the Crush Girls make them look second rate. This bugged me.

Jack de Lassartesse/Robert Duranton vs. Andre Drapp/Bernard Vignal (1/20/61) Another gem in the treasure trove. Lassartesse was so young here it was almost like watching Christopher Lee's Dracula compared to the 200 year-old version from the 1980s. He was this lanky, amazingly long-limbed brawler who just seemed to swallow people up like a spider. His partner was the famous Robert Duranton, a bodybuilder turned wrestler who worked a subtle exotico gimmick. As far as bodybuilders-turned-wrestlers go, his work was superlative, but it was his valet Firmin that made the act special. The heels had cool, detached personas, and sauntered about the ring while Firmin dialed up the heat at ringside. French crowds weren't afraid to have altercations with the performers, and Firmin was grabbed a few times at ringside, but the place came unhinged when he had a go at Roger Couderc. The usually good humoured and jovial Couderc dropped his mic and socked Firmin, forcing a policeman to drag Firmin away. Couderc went back to calling the match and was later shown holding a shoe and asking if anyone had lost it in the melee. The faces for their part were fine. Drapp was another guy with a tremendous bodybuilding physique. I believe he wrestled in the US as well, and was a member of the French Resistance, which is pretty cool. After all the commotion at ringside, the heels took the opening fall thanks to the world's boniest knee drop from Lassartesse, then the video cut out just as the second fall began. Obviously, I would've liked to have seen the entire thing, but if this is all that exists (which I kind of doubt), then it's still a valuable historical document, especially when you consider you've got Lassartesse, Duranton and Drapp all together in the same ring.

Roger Couderc was mostly a sports broadcaster (although he did a few sports oriented TV games too), who was most famous for being a rugby announcer. He indeed didn't know shit about wrestling, but he was so great on the mic, with that distinctive southern accent and colorful expressions (and tongue-in-cheek humour) that he's awesome to listen to. I know Eddie Carpentier really respected him. The only weird thing for me is when they tell a joke and they're still laughing a minute later. I'm pretty sure I've seen clips of Couderc commentating Jean Pierre-Rives, who looked like Ric Flair on the cover of an Apter mag w/ his blond hair and crimson mask.

Francis Sullivan/Albert Sanniez vs. Bernard Caclard/Tony Martino Wonderful lightweight match. Just a beautiful display of athletic dropkicks, head scissors takedowns and rapid lucha style exchanges mixed in with the usual strikes and heel tactics. Martino was the standout. This balding little man with an outstanding physique, who looked like he had a boxing background and used it to devastating effect. A vicious little shit, the working over he gave Sullivan in the second fall instantly made him one of my favourite guys in catch. As good as Martino was, a match can't be any good without the faces being valiant and their technique here was of the highest calibre. They also had a brilliant post-match celebration style, as though they'd just won the men's doubles. You've got to love a babyface team that can celebrate well. If this is indicative of French lightweight wrestling then it was a worthy counterpart to the UK scene. Note: The video has the wrong wrestlers listed for each team

Do you mean the faces? Vince commentating Shawn Michaels matches was something to behold.

Re: the Mega Powers... I started watching wrestling while Hogan was off filming No Holds Barred, so I literally had no idea who he was until Savage announced him as his partner for SummerSlam. I vividly remember Dibiase making some remark about Hogan crawling out of the rock he'd been hiding under and wondering just who this guy was. The cool thing about Savage is that when he became the Macho King he didn't lose any of the qualities that made you like him as a face. I guess that's because he was a heel who became popular.

It's easy to pick out Ross' flaws, but most announcers get annoying after a while. Walton had his Waltonisms that grate on you after a couple of hundred matches, and Russell would prattle on about the same old stuff, his intonation like a drunken slur. The newest commentator I've been listening to is Roger Couderc, who didn't know anything about wrestling but was unbelievably biased towards the babyfaces. Plus he got into fights with ringsiders and the occasional wrestler.

Some corrections: Gilbert Cesca/Ben Chemoul vs. Anton Tejero/Pierre Anou(sp?) (3/12/65) -- Pierre Anou was apparently called Inca Péruano, and Ben Chemoul should really be René Ben Chemoul. Kader Hassouni/Jean Corne vs. Albert Sanniez/Jacky Richard -- This is rather surprisingly from 9/3/83.

Les Copains (Dan Aubroit/Bob Plantin) vs. Les Blousons Noirs (Claude Gessat/Marcel Mannevau) (5/15/64) "Les Blousons Noirs" were the French version of the 1960 UK rocker subculture, and like the Teddy Boys from the 1950s were seen as hooligans and young thugs. This was a match which never saw the light of day because around the same time some les blouson noirs destroyed the seats at the Paris Olympia during a Johnny Hallyday concert, and the ORTF, the national agency which provided public radio and TV at the time, decided they didn't want to encourage these juveniles by airing a match where they went over. Fortunately for us, the footage was discovered in a drawer somewhere and can see some French catch that was never broadcast. Les Blousons Noirs are pretty tame in terms of heat-mongering, but their cheating was effective. Aubroit and Plantin, with the awesome team name of "the Buddies" bring the lucha-esque moves, and all in all this is another good tag. Bernard Vignal vs. Grand Vladimir (5/15/64) Whoah, Grand Vladimir in the 60s. I've only seen him in 80s footage so it was fascinating to see him so young. This was a nice little forearm smash contest until Vladimir was disqualified. I guess this proves that French Catch had throwaway nothing TV bouts as well.

Early Finlay is awesome, like a superior version of hoodlum Dynamite Kid. Then he adopts the "Fit Finlay" persona and gets a lot crowd heat, but his ring work stagnates for a good decade or so. If you've been watching a lot of 90s Finlay then I think most of that stuff is ultimately disappointing. His WWE run was great, but the 90s European and Japan work lacks psychology. The WCW stuff I'm not sure he can be blamed for as there wasn't the same opportunities to have fantastic television matches as there were in the 80s and first half of the 90s.

What's so contentious about claiming that New Japan is better than WWE?

Teddy Boys (Adolphe Sevre/Robert Le Boulch) vs. Gilbert Cesca/René Ben Chemoul Teddy Boys, for those of you who don't know, were teen rebels influenced by American rock 'n' roll music. The subculture started in London in the 1950s and spread across the UK, and was characterised by an overly macho, gang led philosophy that often led to violent clashes with rival subcultures such as the mods. Because of this violence, the Teddy Boys, along with rock 'n' roll were blamed for most of the social ills of the 1950s. It also meant that a lot of heels in the UK, as well as across the channel, adopted a 'Teddy Boy' look even if it wasn't entirely in keeping with how actual Teddy Boys dressed. In the 60s, it merged with the 'rocker' look and was basically a juvenile delinquent look. Even when you get to the 80s, rockers are still portrayed as heels, which is in stark contrast to the babyface rocker teams in the US. I'm not sure if Sevre and Le Boulch teamed regularly as the Teddy Boys, or if Le Boulch was just Sevre's partner for this particular evening, but Sevre did the Teddy Boy gimmick for years. Unfortunately, the VQ on this footage is terrible with the picture breaking up every few seconds and the tape cuts off before the finish, so it's really only snippets of what looked like a fun match.