ohtani's jacket

But that's essentially all you're doing -- telling people there's a chorus. A wrestler starting out on fire and cleaning house is "shine," but so is a wrestler out for blood in a grudge match, or a techico outwrestling a rudo in a title match. The fact that it's the shine isn't really important. It's not even the wrestling equivalent of the hook.

And wrestling fans writing for other wrestling fans need to do that? First you said the length of the shine sequence was the important factor. Now you're saying it clues the reader into the fact that they started with a shine sequence. But why should anybody care that there was a shine sequence? It's like saying "the second caida was longer than usual" as though that information alone means anything. It's almost as though you have in mind a particular image when you think of "shine". Some utterly hot beginning that the word implies for you or some particular rhythm to the action instead of the generic babyfaces start out on offence vibe I get from it.

This is telling you in fewer words than you'd use without "shine" that the babyfaces spend a longer amount than is usually the case dominating the match at the beginning. It's shorthand, and you know exactly what it means straight away. What's the difference between that and: "Quite a long sequence to start during which Rich and Dundee work over Idol with headlocks, snapmares and armdrags. Spot where Idol is caught in the wrong corner and gets the ping-pong punches." The word "shine" alone doesn't tell you why it matters that the beginning was longer than usual.

It's unnecessary usage of an insider term and I don't see what the practical application is. Besides, this is a thread about terms that annoy you. I don't think it needs to be rational.

Short ones.

I think they have real applications and are very useful shorthand. It's not rocket science really. Shine is the bit when the babyface gets some offense in at the start of the match to pop the crowd. 96% of WWF matches ever worked on TV start this way. Some people like Vader or Hansen "jump" the shine and accelerate the match. Heat is when the heel takes over and generates sympathy for the babyface and puts heat on himself. Comeback is the comeback which everyone knows. I don't understand the objections to these perfectly descriptive terms. Explaining what it is just makes it worse. The first ten minutes of any film are crucial, but you don't see film reviewers talking about beats, turning points, negatively and positively charged scenes, entering and exiting early or late, and the placement of the first act hook. Surely, the performance of the babyface is more important than the fact they're doing a shine segment. What do you need that word for? They went too long/short on the shine? Stan Frazier sure was great in the shine?

More dislikes -- shine and heat. Nobody used to use these terms.

Agreed. Alternative expressions are cumbersome and it's self-explicit in its meaning. But everybody has their likes and dislikes. I cringe when people talk about Kings Road/Four Pillars/Four Kings of Heaven.

Maybe legally but marijuana technically is not a narcotic. I'm pretty sure that US federal law classifies a narcotic as any drug which is prohibited. Paraphernalia could mean anything from a pipe to the bag it was in. Having said that, I'm sure Bobby did coke at some point.

I wouldn't call 15 mins short. When I think of short matches, I'm thinking sub-10 minute matches.

What do you mean?

Silver Star vs. Charles Lucero, UWA World Middleweight Championship, 6/22/14 This was a beautiful match. The type of match you could easily imagine Lucero having in his prime. Really authentic lucha maestros wrestling; the type of title match wrestling you don't see much of these days. To be fair, it probably wouldn't go over too well at Arena Mexico, but it's great to see two practitioners carrying on the art form as there aren't too many connections to old school Monterrey left anymore. The first fall was a classic lucha fall with all of the takedowns, reversals and castigos you'd expect from a title match. Lucero's work wasn't all that smooth, and he mistimed a couple of spots like the finish to the second caida, which he almost failed to hook, but like the momentum in a great title fight, I thought his missteps added to the drama. Silver Star has slowed down a lot over the years, but he wrestled a smart fight here. I would have given it to him on points if he hadn't forced a result. I actually thought it was a much more assured performance from Star than their previous fight. The only negative thing I'll say about these two is that they don't make much contact on their topes. It's fair enough that they're protecting themselves, but they don't look good and I have a hard time rationalising them as part of the narrative. Silver Star vs. Charles Lucero, Terraza Elma, Monterrey, 6/29/14 This was a mano a mano bout from an afternoon LLN spot show. Later on, they worked an evening show where they tagged against each other. The smaller venue meant they wrestled a tighter match with a lot of close quarters action. Lucero's execution was better in this match, but a mano a mano this isn't really comparable with the to's and fro's of a title match. It was a nice companion piece, but I'll take an old school title match over this. Arkángel de la Muerte vs. Gallo, FULL World Championship, CMLL 6/21/14 Arkangel de la Muerte is a favourite of the Segunda Caida boys so they were pretty excited about this one. I don't have any special attachment to Arkangel, so my reaction was a bit more subdued. In fact, with Gallo being a Guadalajara local doing a rooster gimmick and the pair feuding over some belt from a Chilean promotion, it struck me as more of a novelty that the match-up made it all the way to Mexico City than a great singles opportunity for a lucha maestro. I appreciate that Arkangel is a great base for young flyers, but I'm not that a fan of his style. He reminds me of more of a 'puro' worker than a classic luchador. That's useful in this day and age, and probably the reason why he works so well with the up and comers, but I like my lucha to be distinctly "lucha" and not a homogenized form of borderless indy wrestling. I don't want to say that Arkangel is the antithesis of Charlie Lucero, but if you enjoy the modern style you'll get more out of this than I did. Arkangel has great execution as well as being a real details guy, and there were some cool spots like the the slingshot Tapitia the Segunda guys talked about. Dragon Lee vs. Hechicero, CMLL 5/20/14 This started off pretty well with Hechicero using his wrestling skills to ground Dragon Lee, but soon unraveled when Lee was given too much leeway on offence. Three times was too many for the story they were telling. Tensions were supposed to be boiling over. Hechicero almost connected on a soccer kick, which Lee took exception to, but they needed to do a better job with the niggly aspects. The pull apart at the end was far from convincing and should have been built to better. The dives should have been cut and Lee left frustrated that he couldn't hit one. That's how I would have played it, but as critical as I'm being it's hard not to be in awe of Lee's dives. He may be the most exciting guy since Freelance. Dragon Lee vs. Cavernario, CMLL 4/29/14 This didn't have the highs of the Hechicero/Lee match, but it was a good example of how much better Cavernario is at building his matches. Really simple stuff with Cavernario controlling the early going before Lee makes a comeback and the two start trading nearfalls, but it's straightforward and easy to follow and the kind of coaxing rhythm that's familiar to long time lucha fans. It could have done with a few highs from the Hechicero match to top it off, and I wish Cavernario would think of a better way to set-up his finisher, but I definitely came out of this tournament with a higher opinion of Cavernario than Hechicero.

I'm not a fan of short matches. I don't like lightning matches in lucha and I was never a big fan of Nitro era matches or the Saturday Night stuff. Matches where the bouts end early because of an injury angle or a run-in/outside interference are obviously worse (unless it's some sort of spectacular angle.) If you're looking for an example of a match that could have been longer, I think a longer Pillman/Windham match in '91 may have been remembered as a classic.

To me, 25 minutes is ideal for a lengthy wrestling match. Obviously, there have been great matches which have gone longer than that, but as a rule I don't enjoy broadways. I always thought 60 minutes was too long for those All Japan draws, for example, especially for a tag match.

Mogur vs. As Charro (Mask vs. Mask) (9/18/87) When you get to this point in the discs, you're probably thinking "who is Mogur?" Mogur was a young wrestler from Jalisco named José de Jesús Pantoja Flores. He'd only been wrestling for a few years when he caught someone's eye enough to be repackaged as the masked gimmick, Mogur, 'El Gato Egipcio' (The Egyptian Cat.) EMLL's interest in Mogur didn't end there, though. Coming out of the 1986 Anniversary Show, the promotion decided it was time to push a hot young star. The company's modus operandi has always been to push a new young star every few years, either by debuting them on top or giving them a fast promotion to the top of the card. They did it with Atlantis in '84 and again with Mogur in '87. There were a number of parallels between the two pushes with veterans Talisman and Satanico being used to give both wrestlers credibility, and both wrestlers winning masks on the company's Anniversary Show. Unfortunately for Mogur, Charro wasn't the biggest of names at this point. A journeyman from the 70s with a Valente Perez gimmick, Charro's body was completely broken down by '87. In his prime, he had apparently been a big bumper, and created his own signature kick, the 'Patada Charra.' His gimmick, like most of Perez' creations, was a fun one, and his rough style had earned him the nickname of 'El Regional Rudo' after he made it to Mexico City. As fun as these photo shoots are, Charro looking for a last big payday didn't give much of a rub to Mogur. Certainly not as much as taking the masks of Talisman and Hombre Bala had done for Atlantis. Thirty years later and Atlantis is a legendary gimmick while Mogur is a guy who most people don't know despite the fact he worked for CMLL for another 20 years. Charro lasted a couple of more years for the promotion, lost his hair to a green Konnan and feuded on and off again with Pirata Morgan on the indie scene. Not bad for a washed up character gimmick.

It probably just means a pipe or bong.

Everybody is somebody's favourite.

The famous All Japan ring announcer was Ryu Nakata, who died earlier this year. The All Japan Women's announcer was Nagaharu Imai, who passed away in 2013.

The NJPW ring announcer Hidekazu Tanaka was good. His Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band costumes not so much.

First up, let me just say that I LOVE the new colour scheme on the Arena Mexico ring. I think it looks fantastic and makes good matches seem even better. Barbaro Cavernario vs. Cachorro, CMLL 4/18/14 I thought this was an excellent lightning match; much better than the Cavernario v. Hechicero workrate sprint where they tried to hit all the highs of a 20 minute lucha match in 7 minutes or less. Here we got a straightforward build from pure lucha exchanges to high risk moves and nearfalls. Cachorro may not be a great mat worker yet, but working from a standing base he looked a lot like his father. I was impressed with his transitions in the opening exchanges, like the spot where he held onto the ropes to stop his momentum and dropped the elbow onto Cavernario. You don't always associate lucha with transitions like that yet they were done in a way that wasn't horribly telegraphed. Cavernario sidestepping Cachorro's tope and sending him crashing into the barricade was a great midpoint for the match, and Cavernario's offence looked fantastic as he tried to rub Cachorro out. The only thing that bothered me were the constant cutaways to Casas and the judges and the clock. Each time they'd do it, they'd edit a bit more out of the match until finally we lost about two minutes worth of footage. I also thought the finish was poorly edited and lacked the impact that the armbar usually has, but it wasn't clear from the way they put it together whether it was in rhythm with the rest of the nearfalls. Cavernario's timing seemed a bit off with the way he walked into it and it wasn't applied so well. Still, this was a strong match that gave a real boost to my opinion of Cachorro. Hechicero vs. Cachorro, CMLL 6/13/14 Watching this so soon after the last bout wasn't a great idea as it didn't have anywhere near the depth of the Cavernario fixture. Rey Hechicero is a great worker -- we've known that for quite some time -- but he hasn't really impressed me so far in CMLL. There was a lot of telegraphed stuff in this like Hechicero avoiding Cachorro's tope attempt only for Cachorro to catch him unawares with a hurricanrana. That's a standard sort of opening -- tease 'em with one dive and pop 'em with another -- but the set up like was like something out of a cartoon with Hechicero turning his back on Cachorro to pose. Eventually, Hechicero was able to ground Cachorro and overpower him, which is about as believable a situation as they could have worked with Hechicero's size and strength advantage, but the dominance felt superficial. Cachorro wasn't given enough opportunities to sell, and they didn't milk any drama from what they were doing. I don't want to say they were going through the motions as they looked like they were working hard, but the end result was the same. Dragon Lee vs. Hechicero, CMLL 6/6/14 The editing in these matches is awful. There's too many cuts and the shots don't match. I don't know what's happened to CMLL's production values, but I've seen college students do a better job of editing footage than these folks. The unnecessary reaction shots from the judges, the constant jump cuts with the clock, and the overuse of different camera angles left me feeling dizzy at times. I don't need to see the clock every 15 seconds, especially if the workers aren't selling that they're running out of time. The work here was pretty anemic. I'm starting to wonder if Hechicero just isn't that good as a rudo. I've yet to see him lay out a match where he looks the goods. Dragon Lee hits at least one jaw dropping spot per match -- in this case a brutal 'flying' stomp to the back of Hechicero's head -- but his man strength at this point appears to be hurtling his body as a projectile. Hechicero vs. Cavernario, CMLL 6/20/14 This was a good match and a worthy conclusion to the tournament. I don't think these two match up quite as well as other people do, and I've enjoyed Cavernario more against both Virus and Cachorro in recent weeks, but it was a good match.Too much was made of the botched tope. That's a move with a high degree of difficulty and it's believable within the context of the match that he might miss it. Hechicero did a fantastic job in covering for the botch and following the old lucha adage of laying in a beating when it's been blown, but as far as botched spots go it actually looked pretty good as it was a complete wipe out. By the same token, I thought the beating Hechicero dished out was overplayed. The action after the botch was 50/50, the same as it was before the spot and the same as it would have been without the botch. I don't think they worked the match any differently than they would have done if Cavernario had hit the spot clean. Both guys have a ton of good looking offence, and although they burn through it a bit it's fun to watch. The finish didn't really work for me as I thought it was a beat or two too soon, but I was glad to see a competitive bout with no time limit, proper production values and no annoying cuts. Hechicero's getting a lot of talk about being the best guy in the world, which makes me an outlier as usual, but I honestly think Cavernario is the better of the two when it comes to using offence in a straight forward way to lay out a match and tell a story.

I don't particularly like IWC or smark, but someone needs to suggest alternative shorthand forms, because writing it out in longhand is a pain in the ass.

I came along around '96-97 and it didn't feel like the first wave. The "community" was already well established (and really quite mind blowing when you first discovered it. ) The first real exposure to Meltzer I had was that interview he did. Before the radio show, the only direct influence he had were the news sites using his stuff and his star ratings, which I think people held in a bit more awe back then, especially when stuff was harder to get. Keith seemed heavily influenced by rspw. The cool kids were influenced by DVDVR. I don't remember Keirh having too many dissenting opinions, though. Most of what he wrote was standard wisdom. DVDVR seemed to be much more at the cutting edge of opinion, hence the reaction they would get to the 500 on your standard "smark" board. Keith was preaching to the choir.

El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas (Mask vs. Hair) (7/18/87) This is the most well known lucha match of the 80s and was included in Jeff Bowdren's Top Matches of the 80s in the 1989 WON Yearbook. "This was a Hair vs Hair match that without any local television, drew more than 7,000 fans to the Olympic Auditorium," wrote Bowdren. "More than either Ric Flair or Hulk Hogan, both of whom were appearing in Los Angeles regularly at the time, had been able to draw. Many people who were there live swear this was the greatest match that they ever saw." It's difficult to find any information about what Negro Casas was doing in 1987, but legend has it that two weeks before the match there was a trios between Misioneros de la Muerte vs. Santo, Casas and Black Shadow Jr. which started the angle, and a week later there was a Super Libre double juice brawl with Casas vs Santo, which was supposed to have been even better than the mask vs. hair match. Casas and Santo were rivals right from the outset of El Hijo del Santo's career. In fact, it was Casas whom Santo defeated for his very first title when he claimed the UWA World Lightweight title on 10/28/84. Casas would chase Santo for the title for the next five years before feuding with Santo over the UWA World Welterweight title in the early 90s. The pair wrestled each other countless times across Mexico, but to the best of my knowledge the other time Casas beat Santo in a title match situation was in 1995 when he beat Santo for the vacant NWA World Welterweight Championship. As many of you will be aware, the most famous chapter in their rivalry began in 1996 about a year after Santo jumped to CMLL. Casas had just turned technico and someone in CMLL came up with the brilliant idea to shock Mexico City by turning Santo heel. Business went through the roof, leading to their famous hair vs. mask match on the 64th Anniversary Show, a decade after their LA match. The 1997 match is considered one of the great matches in lucha history and a must-see if you haven't seen it. A long, drawn out face turn followed for Santo, and the two wound up becoming tag partners in a feud against their former rudo partners, Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr., which led to another famous 90s apuesta match where they took each other on in a rare double hair/mask vs. hair/mask match. Santo's disputes with CMLL over money eventually ended the rivalry, but not before the pair had delivered over twenty years of classic lucha libre.

The Good -- Owen vs. Bret, Larry Z vs. Regal and Dustin vs. The Stud Stable, three of my favourite feuds of the 90s. The Bad -- CMLL being in the doldrums while AAA wasted all of Mexico's talent with shitty booking, and the hubris of Big Egg and the decline of Joshi. The Ugly -- Hogan era WCW, Tony and Bobby on commentary and UWF-i, which may well be the 'Hogan era' of shoot style.

Current Favorite Wrestler To Watch: Between an 80s film project, my own cataloguing of the greatest funk and RnB songs of the 80s, a couple of anime series I'm watching, 1970s comic books, and this being the best time of the year for sport, I've only been watching a couple of matches a week, BUT, I think Virus is hands down the best guy in Mexico right now. Last Fun Match You Saw: Jackie Turpin vs. Steve Grey from '82 was a great match. Yet another guy who had his best match with Grey and another guy who I want to track down all of his work because of Steve Grey. I call this the Steve Grey effect. Wrestler You Want To See More Of: Jackie Turpin, I guess. I'm approaching one last final sweep of available WoS footage (which is kind of sad.) Mano Negra is another guy who's appealed to me lately. I always knew he was good, but he's not a name I remember when listing the best lucha workers. Last Live Show Attended: My friend from New Zealand and I went to Osaka Pro with Gordi a year or two ago. Match You Are Looking Forward To Watching Soon The Most: Probably more French catch and the lucha matches that pop up on my two favourite YouTube channels. There's a 1992 Casas/Dandy trios I hope to get to within the next few days. Last Fun Interview/Promo You Saw: I honestly can't remember. It would have been something I came across on YouTube. Last Interesting Thing You Read About Wrestling: I've only really been reading this board and Segunda Caida. I find the Remedial wrestling thread at DVDVR kind of interesting even if I don't agree with a lot of it, because it's not the usual fawning over All Japan. Last Worthwhile Wrestling Podcast You Heard: I find podcasts too time consuming to listen to. Sometimes I try to put them on while doing something else, but they're far too distracting. I like the concept, though. The Titans format is great, and Will and Schneider are always hilarious, and Naylor too. Most Fun You've Had Watching Wrestling Lately: Probably the Javier Llanes/Dandy trios leading up to their singles match. I marked out a lot for that.