ohtani's jacket

BTW, you should add Choshu as a trainer for New Japan and Hashimoto as a Calgary trainee.

Hase and the other Japanese workers had additional training in Calgary under Mr. Hito and Kazuo Sakurada. It wasn't their initial training, so it's up to you whether you include it.

Davey Boy Smith was trained in Ted Betley's gym.

Where is Virus? Why is Casas so high? How come Cavernario isn't on the list instead of Hechicero? I like the Lucero pick. He's the second best guy in Mexico behind Virus right now.

Sting's '93 was just as good as his '92 with the Vader strap match being the high point of his work during those two years. From '94-96 he was a good worker, but didn't have a marque feud like the Vader series (aside from the times he faced Vader again that is.) His feud with Meng was fun and produced at least one good PPV match. I also love all of his stuff with Regal where he's outside his comfort zone on the mat and just goes for it.

Looks like the guy uploading this stuff had his account taken down. Loss mentioned being interested in stuff from '89, so I thought I'd have a poke around. Grizzly Iwamoto & Bison Kimura vs. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada, AJW TV 8/89 This was pretty good for a match featuring young workers. Of course, they worked at a thousand miles an hour and never slowed things down, but that was the style and not really a fault of the workers. Grizzly and Bison more or less worked like Bull and Condor from a few years prior, while it wouldn't surprise me if the company were hoping Toyota and Yamada would blossom into the next Crush Girls. Some nice double teaming from the heels and some high end moves from the faces were the highlights of this.

Buddy Rose/Curt Hennig vs. Dynamite Kid/Assassin, 9/3/83 I've been looking forward to seeing some Dynamite Kid in Portland. The best DK match I've seen was his '83 bout against Marty Jones, and while he wasn't as good here as he was in that match, it looks as though '83 might have been his best year. Rose as a face was weird. The crowd were into it, but I found it strange. It's too bad they couldn't find DK a better partner than the Assassin. You'd have to like your Portland to enjoy that cat. Match dragged a bit with the double FIP falls and there really wasn't that much to like about the work. Nothing the heels did was really that compelling and Buddy's hot tag wasn't all that convincing despite the crowd being hot for it. Hennig was a bit quiet and the ending left me feeling short changed, so all in all, a bit flat.

Kotetsu Yamamoto trained many of those New Japan wrestlers.

That's right. The wikipedia page is missing Fedor in the Open-Weight Championship title history. He won a tournament for the vacant title on 8/11/01.

Heel vs. heel would have been cool, but that was pretty rate. IIRC, Breaks wrestled McManus on TV once. I can't imagine how that turned out. Giant Haystacks vs. Tony Francis (10/2/86) The bigger Haystacks got the more the crowd seemed to loathe him. His heat seemed in direct proportion to his girth. Tony Francis is a great wrestling story, like so many unknown Brits, whose career dated back to being a second for the legendary Dirty Jack Pye at Blackpool Tower, but here he was jobbing for Haystacks in 28 seconds. A bit sad really. Afterwards, there was a clip of the wrestlers cutting promos (an innovation that came along late in the piece.) Haystacks was a decent promo by British standards, but Marty Jones jeez. It was endearing, I guess, what with the lazy eye and all, but they harder they tried to match the American presentation the shittier the product looked. Giant Haystacks vs. Johnny Wilson (aired 4/18/81) For some reason, Wilson got longer than the usual one round against Haystacks. Dunno what the politics behind that were. In his last TV appearance, Mal Kirk beat the crap out of him, so you could be forgiven for thinking Wilson was in the dog house. Because it went a few rounds, Haystacks was on top for longer and that sure gets boring after a while. Wilson did a decent job working from underneath, especially on the double interlock (I love Walton-speak), but yeah.. Highlight of this was Brian Crabtree's yellow jumpsuit. Well, that's not entirely fair, the slam and splash looked good w/ Haystacks catching Wilson's crossbody attempt. Giant Haystacks vs. John Cox (9/16/86) John Cox was a hard looking man. Since the WoS footage that aired on TWC is uncut, you often get a little insight into the TV set-up before Walton joins in on commentary. Here we got to see the MC warming up the crowd a bit, and what a shitty crowd it was. Hecklers and assholes doing football chants. Haystacks was big here and his mobility was starting to suffer. Cox jobbed, but it was really poorly orchestrated and about a 10th as well put together as a WWF Superstars match. Walton was at a loss for words and Haystacks got heckled on his way out. Quality! Bert Royal/Vic Faulkner vs. John & Peter LaPaque (12/11/74) This was better than your average WoS tag, but a long way off French catch. The structure was a bit of a mess as it was double FIP without a hot tag, but the LaPaques' cheating was great and the Royals always amuse me with how dickish they are. Vic Faulkner has got to be the ultimate dick babyface. Such a cocky shit. The messiness of the bout made it exciting, but it's odd that British workers didn't cotton on to the hot tag. Mick McManus vs. Bob Anthony (4/21//80) Thought I'd watch this again to give Anthony a fair shake and was surprised by how competitive it was. McManus gave Anthony a frigging shitload of the bout compared to the amount he usually gave opponents. There was very little in the way of Mick's shtick, only the forearm smashes really. Easily the best McManus bout from the 80s, though not representative of his formula. Anthony had some nice holds and acquitted himself well. Catweazle vs. Chris Bailey (7/26/78) Chris Bailey was awesome. Really similar to heel Mike Jordan a decade later with the moustache and male pattern balding. I wish we had more of him as he stomped the everloving shit out of Catweazle, who deserved every bit of it. I enjoyed that. Too bad he took a tumble outside and needed the St.John's people.

The UWF-i belt was called the "Pro-Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship." Nobuhiko Takada 92/09/21 Osaka * Defeats Gary Albright to become the first champ. Super Vader 94/08/18 Tokyo Nobuhiko Takada [2] 95/04/20 Nagoya * Title vacant when Lou Thesz dropped recognition in 95/10. He didn't like the idea of the title unification match against IWGP champ. RINGS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RINGS#Championships

For overrated, I've got to go with Negro Casas. He used to be a great worker and an absolute genius, but that was in the 90s. I don't enjoy his current persona with the nickname and the theme music, and the comedy and the stupid parrot. Especially the parrot. I don't like the cookie cutter style he works with young guys or his offence, and I don't like the trio he's a part of. He's excellent when he works against Rush, and to a lesser extent Blue Panther, but it's not a patch on the old Casas. And I don't just mean physically. His psychology is nowhere near as impressive as it used to be. For underrated, it has to be Breaks, Grey, Roberts, Rudge, Roach... all of the British workers.

Virus vs. Fuego, CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship, 6/15/14 This was a tremendous match and my working MOTY at this point. Virus was outstanding and showed once again why he is without peer not only in CMLL but in the whole of Mexico really. Fuego deserves credit for his part in the match as well. It would be easy to put all the focus on Virus & Kid, but Fuego put in about as assured a performance as you can expect from a kid. The opening exchange saw them work from a tie-up into a series of arm and leg locks without a single reset, When they did break, they worked a neat exchange where Fuego began to realise he had the height to trouble Virus. There was a hip toss takedown that really seemed to bother Virus as it came after a series of counters from Fuego, so he popped up and struck Fuego across the chest. This was the set-up for them to run the ropes and close out the fall, but it was also a concession from Virus that he couldn't beat him straight up on the mat. At least not in the first caida. One of the things I love about Virus is that despite his height he can lay in his strikes. The elbow he gave Fuego off the ropes caught him flush. He went for a lariat and Fuego countered with a short arm clothesline of his own that had an extra bit of oomph to it. The finishing stretch was awesome as Fuego monkey flipped Virus onto the apron, Virus caught him with a headbutt, missed a senton attempt and rolled through to catch Fuego with an armdrag. Just awesome shit. The ref had no idea whether the finish was a submission or a pinfall, but it couldn't sour a sublime opening fall. You'll see better lucha matwork elsewhere, but as far as the modern style goes, the fall had purpose, it had a narrative, and a minimum of resets. Fuego had a chance when Virus was back to canvas, but he couldn't pry the opportunity open and Virus outsmarted him in the rope exchanges. The second fall began with VIrus working over Fuego's leg and looking to force another submission in quick succession. This is another area that Virus excels. Nobody works a body part quite like him. It's like a beat down and classic body part psychology all in one. Fuego's selling might bug a few people as he decided to hobble and then blow it off, but he scored points with me for his urgency and for keeping Virus honest. It looked like he didn't hit his pinning combination cleanly, but the little shimmy across Virus' body to slide into position was enough of a break dance type move for me to give it a pass. The third caida was a little rough around the edges to begin with since it was Fuego in control, but it got going as soon as he hit his topes. Fuego has a really beautiful tope. Great technique, lovely looking flight through the air and his his opponent square on. Virus also took the tope beautifully not to mention the bump through the ropes to set up the dive and the bump as Fuego threw him to the ground to set up tope number two. Back in the ring and I loved Virus' big wind up punch to take back control of the match. The nearfalls he created in this match were fantastic. For a guy who's not exactly a noted flyer, his top rope maneuvers have tremendous impact. The flying elbow is a personal fave of mine. I just love seeing the little guy drop the elbow like that. Uncorking the Samoan backdrop with the bridge was sweet as well, but he got a lot of pay off a sunset flip. The guy is a bona fide legend. His selling in terms of both desperation and fatigue is yet another thing he's unparalleled at. Things were pretty tense at the end, as they should be in a world title match. The moment where I thought Virus had it was when Fuego went back to the pinning combo that had won him the second fall. It was at that point that he seemed bereft of ideas whereas Virus was able to pull out the "La Motocicleta." That highlighted the difference between the two as Fuego simply didn't have a move like that up his sleeve when he needed one, but boy, Virus celebrated that one with more than a little relief mixed in with the elation. Great match from a great wrestler. An all-time great really. They deserved the money that was thrown at them and the match itself deserves more accolades. It wasn't perfect, but it was consistently excellent and fundamentally stronger than the Virus/Titan match. I see that they had a match a few years ago that somehow slipped through the cracks. I'm going to check that out and see how it compares. In the meantime, I hope more people seek this out and enjoy it.

If not Adam, then who?

Blue Panther/Sergio El Hermoso v. Super Astro/Solar (10/17/87) This was from Benjamin Mora's Tijuana based promotion, WWA, which along with Super Muneco's AWWA promotion in Mexico City and Carlos Elizondo's FILL promotion in Monterrey, was one of the major independent promotions in Mexico outside of the UWA. It attracted a large number of stars who worked for Flores, as well as unearthing future stars such as Psicosis and Rey Mysterio. Jr. The promotion's major venue, Auditorio de Tijuana, became known as the "Cementerio de las Máscaras" due to the number of stars who dropped their masks there, and it was also the site of some of the bloodiest hair matches of the late 80s. WWA also promoted in Southern California. In fact, this match is from the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles and the correct date is 8/22/87 according to the WON. Los Cadetes Del Espacio had broken up by this point with Ultraman busy losing his mask all over Mexico and Southern California. Solar and Super Astro still worked the indy circuit together with Solar II often filling in for Ultraman in trios matches. Later in the year, Solar and Astro worked this match-up twice in one day (in Aguascalientes and Colima) with Black Terry replacing Sergio el Hermoso. A 1987 version of the maestro matches that would take place thirty years later. The main feud here was Solar vs. Blue Panther. Solar was the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight champion at the time this match took place, having beaten Panther for the title in Puebla on 5/25/87. Solar would have a brief feud with Satanico at Arena Coliseo that ended with a drawn title match on 1/22/88 before he dropped the belt back to Panther in Puebla on 2/8/88. Panther was a rudo at the time, but essentially what you're seeing is the chase from two of the best mat workers of the decade. Solar is a true lucha maestro and generally regarded as one of the finest wrestlers of his generation. Next year will mark the 40th year of his professional career and he remains an excellent worker at the age of 58. Solar was from Jalisco originally, and was born and raised in a small town called Zacoalco de Torres. He spent most of his childhood milking cows and working the fields, and his original inspiration for becoming a luchador was traveling to Arena Coliseo Guadalajara and seeing the likes of Solitario, Rene Guajardo and Angel Blanco thrill audiences. Like most of the era's brightest talent, Solar trained under Diablo Velasco, a man whose mystique rivaled that of the biggest stars. Solar ranked among Velasco's finest prodigies and bought into his training completely, believing wholehearted in Velasco's mythos of professional wrestling being a sport that required physical and mental conditioning and precise knowledge of the rules and regulations, as well as the "castigos," or wrestling holds. Velasco would draw parallels to "pancracio" (the ancient Greek sport of Pankration, which was like a mix of boxing and wrestling), and all of his students trained in what was loosely referred to as "Olympic" style wrestling (i.e. amateur wrestling) with many of them becoming outstanding mat workers; some of them among the best of all-time. Solar was special, though. Even Velasco had pause to tell Box y Lucha reporters that he was amazed by the things Solar managed to show when he was just starting to train at the Coliseo gym. Solar initially wanted to do a type of executioner gimmick where his face was covered by an axe, but while training under the sun in Guadalajara the idea of the sun came to him and the Solar gimmick was born. Solar enjoyed success right from the get-go. He arrived in Mexico City in 1976 from Monterrey where he had won notoriety for his extraordinary abilities, and caused a major upset when he beat Villano III in two straight falls and without disqualifications for the UWA World Welterweight title in May 1977. Villano had been on an impressive winning streak to that point, and Solar proved the upset was no fluke by successfully defending the title against Fishman in a match El Halcon called the most spectacular match-up of 1978. Flores then booked him in a successful apuesta feud with popular independent worker Dr. O'Borman to cap 1979, promoting Box y Lucha to proclaim: "his name is Solar, and it truly seems he could be the center of our universe." More success followed in 1981 when he took the National Middleweight title from Cachorro Mendoza at Arena Coliseo. Defenses followed against both Satanico and El Faraon before Satanico claimed the belt back for EMLL. During the next few years, the magazines pushed him as a contender for another world title. Then, for some reason, Solar's career cooled off with the Los Cadetes Del Espacio run and he never fully delivered on the promise that Box y Lucha saw in him. He forged out a respectable career, but instead of becoming one of the big names of the early 90s, he continued to work pretty much the same way he had in '87, working El Toreo and the indies with the occasional appearance at Arena Coliseo or Arena Mexico. Later on, he had a run in AAA where he again feuded with Panther as El Mariachi. He was then part of the group of workers who jumped to CMLL where he was used on the undercard as a veteran hand to guide young workers. In the early 00s, he began working regularly with his former UWA contemporaries on the indy circuit, developing a style of working we would later dub "maestro matches." In particular, he had tremendous chemistry with Negro Navarro and the two honed a type of touring maestro match which they've performed all over Mexico and as far abroad as the US, Japan and Europe. Due to the dearth of footage from Solar's prime, this maestros work has done a great deal to enchance Solar's reputation as a worker and has been a terrific coda to his long career.

I find most of Stax' stuff pretty watchable. He does the same moves in each bout, but they're short and make for good TV at times. Giant Haystacks vs. Steve McHoy (2/24/83) Walton would not stop going on about how good looking McHoy was both "physically and in the face." I guess McHoy was part of the generation of stars who never were. This was a pretty standard Haystacks bout. The formula goes something like this: * Haystacks' opponent tries to take him off his feet * Haystacks cuts him off with an inside move and begins cheating * The referee issues a public warning, and the opponent fights back with whatever strike they have * Haystacks hits the slam and splash, or drops the elbow, and knocks his opponent out The only real variation on it was Haystacks getting himself disqualified. The cool thing about this bout was that afterwards he started messing with the MC Brian Crabtree about wanting a piece of his brother. Crabtree told him Big Daddy was on his way to the ring and Haystacks back elbowed him in the face. The crowd were all on their feet by this point. Haystacks was avoiding Daddy and Crabtree was taken backstage to the dressing room. It was a nice bit of TV that got all the kids stomping their feet and chanting along. Some hilariously bad acting too w/ Big Daddy's "What has he done to Brian?" line being comical. Professor Aki Mojo vs. Johnny Czeslaw (9/26/74) Aki Mojo was a bit of an odd one. According to Walton he was an Israeli with a Japanese name residing in France. The Japanese name part doesn't sound right, but he was doing a judoka gimmick. I couldn't find any information about him in French, so I'm not sure if he was a Catch worker. He didn't do anything particularly amazing. but he looked a lot like some of the rudos we've been seeing in 60s Catch. Walton pulled out his old chestnut of a foreigner not being able to speak a word of English. I love it when that one backfires on him. It's almost as amusing as when he gets uptight over the ring announcer making a mistake or the onscreen graphics being wrong. The bout was mostly Czeslaw schtick, but that's okay. I like his schtick. Bob Anthony vs. Johnny Saint (11/26/80) This was one of the first WoS bouts I watched. I made a few disparaging remarks about Anthony since he was a complete nobody to me at the time. These days, I've come to appreciate the less known wrestlers who appear on tape. Anthony is a bit of a strange case in that he appeared on TV in the early 60s then moved to the independents, but somehow had a handful of TV appearances again in 1980. Walton treated him as a boy despite his age and there was no real mention of him being a vet or an established guy. He was a better worker than I gave him credit for all those years ago and he had some nice exchanges with Saint, but once it was time to go to the finish, Saint's stretch work was again weak. Giant Haystacks vs. Honey Boy Zimba (1/30/79) Zimba was giving away 20 stone here and there wasn't much he could do, but he was jinking and jiving and put on a bit of a show. The headbutt came into the equation, as you'd expect from a gimmick like Zimba's. He had a fun burst before the finish and then it was over. KO. I wonder if you got paid the same for these matches as you did the full rounders. Giant Haystacks vs. Gwyn Davies (3/17/76) I was quite interested in this one as Davies was the British Heavyweight champion at the time, so this time a competitive squash was unlikely. That's not to say the match didn't follow the general formula for most Haystacks matches, but it went 2/3 falls and Davies got more chances to retaliate. We've only got three Davies matches on tape -- one of them being an all-time classic -- and it's a shame that this is one of them when so many better match-ups exist, but it was interesting to see a younger and slimmer Haystacks even if youth didn't greatly improving his wrestling. Giant Haystacks vs. Prince Mann Singh (10/8/80) I guess being heavyweight champion of the Punjab isn't enough to earn you an even contest with Stax. This was extremely similar to the Zimba bout right down to the exact same spots. The only real difference was that Singh used chops instead of headbutts. Stax was a bit sloppy with his trademark spots, but he got the job done with a thunderous splash. Another one bites the dust.

Johnny Saint vs. Terry Jowett (12/11/74) I'm pretty sure I've seen this before, but my records say I haven't so I gave it a watch. Not a bad match, really. Jowett didn't have a ton of charisma, but he was clearly a good worker. He took Saint by surprise by pushing the action in the early going, using the type of fast paced moves you'd usually expect from Saint. Johnny had to work his way into this one, which was good because it meant less schtick. Walton mentioned that Jowett had been touring Mexico, which made him seem immediately cooler, and things were going along nicely until the exceedingly lame finish. It wasn't an injury finish or anything like -- in fact, it was clean -- but it was one of those shitty 70s finishes where they drop all the matwork to go the ropes and win off a weak exchange. Hate that shit. Mike Marino vs. Man Mountain Moran (9/11/75) True to his name, Man Mountain Moran was a large man and kind of moved around like the British version of Baba. This was a Super Heavyweight knock out tournament that somehow involved a middleweight. Ours is not to question why. Moran threw Marino into the ropes to start and the top rope came undone. After a short delay the match resumed, and it was basically a whole bunch of cheating from Moran and a mix of retaliation and guile from Marino. But it was entertaining enough. Ray Steele vs. Giant Haystacks (11/18/81) How would my boy Ray Steele fair against Haystacks? Oooh, Haystacks got himself DQ'ed. Way to go, Steele! Giant Haystacks vs. Kwik Kick Lee (1/19/83) Kick him in the head, Maeda! Maeda must have loved this. You could almost see the germ of the UWF idea in his dazed look as Haystacks splashes the absolute fuck out of him. Giant Haystacks vs. Jamaica George (5/7/87) Y'know, for a 1987 match I thought this was pretty damn good. Not guilty pleasure good, but legitimately good. It was a competitive squash, but a really good one. George tried to take the big man to the pay window, which is all you can hope for from tonight's lucky jobber, but it was tight and he sold Stax' elbow drop like a champ. I also got a kick out of Haystacks legit pulling the finger on TV.

There was an NWA affiliated promotion when I was a small and a start-up promotion when wrestling was big in '88-89, but I never went to any shows. My parents did. They saw pretty much all of the touring stars from the late 70s and early 80s. The WWF tours we got during the boom were WWF E shows. They were headlined by the Bushwhackers and just awful.

Are you sure you're not influenced by being an "international fan," so to speak? When I first came online, I lived at the bottom of the world. I had a buddy who watched wrestling with me and we followed it PPV to PPV (sometimes skipping the IYHs.) The only TV we had access to was Worldwide. Later we got WCW Pro and finally one hour versions of RAW and Nitro and slightly edited versions of the PPVs, but we were months behind and our only real connection to the States was through the magazines. The whole reason I came online in the first place was to check for PPV spoilers. That's massively different from people in the US who went to shows or who could watch things live. I don't think everyone who came online was starting from the same place.

Right, by "everything" I was really referring to everything from the big two. I don't know about other countries but in New Zealand you could only rent NWA tapes from the late 80s and nothing from WCW, not even a single commercial tape. It wasn't until they started showing delayed free-to-air coverage of the 1997 WCW PPVs that we saw WCW events. So, I definitely remember Keith being a source for past WCW PPV info, and of course his FAQ was influential.

Jerry, Regarding the casual smart fan, the first thing that most people discovered through dial up was the news sites. Suddenly, they had access to all sorts of gossip, rumours and backstage news, but the extent to which it effected them was that they probably thought Yokozuna was going to show up on RAW on Monday. If they ventured onto the message boards, they would have been exposed to WCW vs. WWF fans and the WWF death riding that took place after Pillman's death and then Montreal. Learning about workers and star ratings, and everything like that, would come later if the person was interested and decided to hang around. Many people weren't interested in 'work.' A lot of people only cared about the top of the card, which wrestlers were leaving for which promotion, and who won the ratings on Monday night. Generally, people became interested in 'work' either through one or two posters piquing their interest, or through discovering a pocket of the internet where people cared about it more than on the boards they first encountered. People who cared about workers and matches more than the WCW vs. WWF war were often labeled as purists or elitists, particularly if they believed that Japanese wrestling was better than American wrestling, and there wasn't that many reviews of past wrestling shows because tapes were expensive. One of the reasons why Keith had a presence back then was that he reviewed (seemingly) everything in an era where it wasn't easy to get stuff and where the 'canon', for want of a better word, was WON star ratings and maybe the old rspw awards.

It's almost as amusing as "Manami Toyota was a lesbian because she wasn't interested in me backstage."

People are taking this community stuff to literally. It was just a term to describe a collection of message boards and websites created with the express purpose of talking about wrestling. It's meant to be analogous to a physical community with different neighbourhoods, not a community ethos where people share the same beliefs. When people mention "what the IWC thought at the time" it's just a generationalisation to establish what the consensus was at the time among the majority. Since there were all sorts of fans online -- old timers, lapsed fans, new fans, casual fans, hardcores, 'purists' or 'elitists' (as people were often called), people trying to make money off wrestling, people trolling -- it's easier to lump them all under the IWC banner than stumble about trying to find the perfect terminology to describe all of the contributors. Even something like message board posters is clunky.

And here I was thinking it was the most unintentionally ironic statement ever written.

I also have fond memories of the WWF magazine. My father used to buy it for me each month along with the weekly tabloid and TV guide that had two page wrestling spreads. Try as you may, you can never recreate that sort of magic. I remember a slightly unpopular girl at school bringing a copy of the magazine to school to garner attention from the boys. Went well until someone brought a ninja turtle figure.