ohtani's jacket

Was he a worse talker than Sting? I'd have to say yes.

Are we forgetting that Dustin couldn't talk?

I've finally met another human being who loves this match. Thank you.

Tim was asking about matches comparable to Tully vs. Magnum or Flair vs. Steamboat. A TV match with Dustin and an underrated pay-per-view match against Regal aren't in the same ballpark. The question wasn't did Arn have a great singles match, but did he have that "one really great singles match?" which I presume is a match that's good enough to be "canonised" for want of a better word.

Yeah, but even these aren't "great" in the traditional sense. I think he's similar to Regal in that he wasn't a big match worker.

Virus, Cachorro & Hechicero vs. Negro Casas, Cavernario & Dragon Lee, CMLL 5/23/14 Everybody's talking about this as a Match of the Year Candidate, but for a trios with four good workers in it, I thought it was pretty disappointing. The only parts that were exciting or genuinely engaging were during the finishing stretches, and the work in between was clumsy and unfocused. The opening fall was a perfect example. Dragon Lee is a young guy and can't mat wrestle. If you have him work an opening mat exchange with Virus, he'll be scrambling. Virus has got to carry him for the mat work to be effective let alone good, but that requires slowing the bout down and working a different tone. Here, they wanted to work a fast paced bout, so they did a classic "mirroring" exchange where they wrestle each other to a stand still. Which would've been okay if Dragon Lee had been in any way convincing, but he doesn't have the quickness that those spots require. You could almost feel him thinking them through as though they're a series of steps. The exchange didn't look terrible as Virus is still the best wrestler in the company and everything he does looks great, but the stand still didn't ring true and was a waste of a match-up. You accept that and move on, but Casas vs. Cachorro was more of the same. Cachorro is another young guy, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but Casas should be looking to be get more out of an exchange than this. As we all know, match-ups make trios, and it's the story threads that make those match-ups compelling. You could argue that this was just a workrate trios, but if that's the case, the work wasn't very inspiring. Cavernario and Hechicero tried to inject a bit of stiffness and physicality, but their exchange-cum-brawl was muddled and confused. That was a trend that continued throughout the bout, as Hechicero was well off his game. The fall picked up as Virus did his senton to the outside and the finishing stretch kicked into high gear, but as the dust settled on the opening fall, I couldn't help but wonder why they stray so far from the tried and true. If you want to do a high tempo opening fall, the pattern has always been to square off once with individual pairs, switch partners and dance one more time, then run the ropes for the turning point and first fall climax. It's a simple formula but works so well. Ideally, you'd build the first fall crescendo to the heights the En Busca de un Idolo has been reaching, but Cavernario and Hechicero didn't pull out the stops and the fall was a table setter at best. It would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I like their match-up as much as everyone else (in fact, I thought the Cavernario/Virus match-up was vastly superior throughout, but then I think Virus is vastly superior to anyone else in the match), but in a match like this you want the action to culminate with a key match-up, and I thought Cavernario/Hechicero from the En Busca de un Idolo would've been swinging. The second fall at least had a decent sense of urgency to it. The work wasn't outstanding, but they powered through it. Cavernario looked all at sea during his big comeback in the three-on-one sequence, and I have my doubts about whether he's a polished worker, but his plancha is gorgeous, and along with Dragon Lee's insane dive, they hit the high notes the crowd was looking for. But Virus and Casas... if you're going to do a mano-a-mano standoff to end a fall, you might want to do something a bit more exciting than that. For seasoned vets that was weak. Everybody knows I think Negro Casas is overrated these days (except for when he wrestles Rush), but c'mon, work a few more beats before you celebrate and do the parrot shit. Casas and Hechicero then worked a muddled exchange to open the closing fall. It actually started off pretty well with Hechicero working rough with Casas, and Casas seemingly giving him a receipt with some great looking knees, but Casas started looking tired and his strikes loosened up. For some reason, their exchange went beyond a reasonable length for this sort of opening exchange and Hechicero went for a nearfall too early in the fall. Dragon Lee and Cachorro's work was earnest without being particularly good, but I remember what the Traumas were like when they first started making tape, so I'm not going to rag on the young guys. The hip toss spot was impressive and Cachorro's tope was spectacular, but again it came too early in the fall to have an impact. Virus vs. Cavernario was great and the one match-up coming out of this that I'd want to see again. Virus is so great at working strike exchanges (both throwing and selling), and his positioning for Cavernario's moves was exemplary. It was notable how much better Cavernario's nearfall came across despite their exchange being much shorter than Casas/Hechicero. The rest of the fall was about dropping bombs and was a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. The Virus/Cavernario exchange where Virus was trying to get a submission on Cavernario was awesome, and Virus' muscle flex pose when he finally got it hooked was a genuine mark out moment for me, but Hechicero/Lee was an absolute mess and after three falls (good or bad) to finish on a piece of cheating wasn't cool. Satanico could have made it work. Sangre Chicana too. Perro Aguayo. Cien Caras. But Hechicero's not in that ball park as rudo. It's worth point out that everybody who's seen this bout has liked it. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. I wanted to like it since it's not every day you have four good workers in a trios. I gave it a second chance, and even a third as I was writing this up, but despite some good points it just didn't move me like good trios wrestling should. Virus is absolutely awesome, though.

Okay, but in that case Dave's memories of the Flyers doesn't gel with your appraisal of them. It's not really an argument about standards, is it?

Does this apply to when you're praising matches or when you're criticising them? I mean, if I praised Flair/Kerry would he tell me my praise means nothing because I wasn't there? If I praised it without understanding the context would he tell me I don't know what I'm talking about? Or is it only when people criticise a match for being dated or not holding up that he plays the context card? Is it okay for us to praise French catch, or should we not do so because no-one's ever done so in the past? Or can we praise French catch so long as he don't use hyperbole like "French catch was the best wrestling in the world in the 60s"?

Dave is assuming that the average person is going to find the Flair/Kerry cage match dated. The reason being that the majority of people find older things dated. I don't think he expects that people are going to use certain standards to judge the match fairly. The whole thing comes across as a defense of older wrestling.

I think the discord here is caused by the fact that when most of us watch older wrestling we don't immediately think: "boy, things sure have changed." We're more inclined to think: "wow, they did that back then?" or "shit, that's cool, I've never seem that before." Most of us look at older footage from a view point of the "basics." Any anachronisms there may be are either seen as quirky, different or awesome.

Mysterio got over in '96 because he was doing moves most people had never seen before. He wasn't having matches with great storytelling or psychology. Those would come later in the WWE. In '96, he didn't even have very good lucha psychology. He seemed influenced by Japanese juniors wrestling. But the only guy who came close what he could do athletically was probably Oro a few years earlier. Mysterio set new standards for high flying and did so with his speed, athleticism and execution. I can think of anything else major he did in those matches. He may have played an underdog role, I suppose, but Psicosis left his rudo act South of the border and his schtick was pretty much the springboard for Rey as a technico. What else did Mysterio bring that year other than sheer athleticism?

Athleticism is part of pro-wrestling. Why do people think El Dandy's 1990 is so great? Because of the things he was able to do athletically. Young Santo got over because of his athleticism. Casas and Fuerza got noticed because of an amazingly athletic match they had on an Anniversary card. Smaller wrestlers like the Brazos and Misioneros not only got over because of their athleticism, they changed the course of lucha history in the process. There are countless examples of athleticism playing a huge part in wrestling. If you're a fan of athletic wrestlers or you appreciate the athleticism of today's workers, it's not a stretch to imagination than the wrestling of yesterday is going to appear less athletic.There's a reason why some people would rather watch flashy young workers over past greats and I don't think it's necessarily bad taste. I also think many of us appreciate athleticism to a point then jump off the wagon when the wrestling no longer suits our tastes. To give another lucha example, I found young Shocker tolerable because the overall product was great, likewise Niebla, Black Warrior, etc. I could appreciate the role they played as young guys in trios matches. I didn't love them like Ciclon Ramirez and his tope back when lucha was really good, but flash forward to the present day and I can't tolerate a lot of the great athletes like Sombra, even though he's probably had a higher number of good singles matches than the rest of the names I've mentioned. A lot of what we praise depends on how caught up in the moment we are.

I don't have a problem with Dave's point of view, but I think it's pretty clear that he doesn't see any value in re-evaluating old footage. I don't think Dave cares about lost workers or undiscovered matches. I don't think he cares about territories he paid no attention to at the time. He cares about what the consensus was at the time. I imagine he sees it as part of the fabric of wrestling history, and I think there's merit in that. Unfortunately, it means he dismisses a lot of stuff he's unfamiliar with, but to his credit he'll defer to a Jose or a Steve Sims if it's not an area he's experienced with. I don't think he's suggesting that people shouldn't watch older footage, but he'd never accept that a guy who all of his peers thought was a great worker wasn't that great and that there were plenty of guys who were better than him. Maybe he's right, who knows? One thing's for sure, he's on a completely different wavelength from many of us here. Not that we're all that extreme. I joined a film board recently that stunned me in terms of how far people would go to find the smallest, most insignificant film from a director and claim it was an unheralded masterpiece better than the director's best work. Informative, but crazy.

Film is above all a visual medium. When I was a screenwriting major, it was instilled in us that we had to write visually no matter what type of story we were telling. I watch all sorts of films, but I dislike the "filmed stage play" aesthetic immensely. I don't think we can totally dismiss athleticism. If you were to compare the Shield, for example, with 80s WWF tag wrestling then I think a big difference in the standard of quality would be athleticism, and I suppose moves too. A lot of workers who we think are great at psychology or storytelling were originally lauded for their athleticism. Bihari always likes to say that older lucha fans likely felt the same way about early 80s Casas, Fuerza and Santo that we felt about Mistico, etc. So, athleticism has always played a part, much as it does in real sports. The reason why most 90s wrestling was originally praised was because 90s wrestling ratcheted up the athleticism. I also think a lot of the psychology and storytelling type matches today are wretched because they try to be too cinematic. There's been a big change there and not for the better. But you have to wonder whether they're going in that direction for a reason. Perhaps the dramatic pre-match montage and in-match soliloquies are the new standard.

I'm not necessarily talking about special effects. Mankiewicz wasn't the most visual director. Every shot was framed for dialogue and his films were often overly long and overly wordy. He didn't make use of the visual language that existed in the 50s let alone the techniques that have been developed since. We're just about to wrap up the 50s film poll at DVDVR and I can tell you there were better directed films in 1950 alone. Which isn't to say that All About Eve isn't a great film, because it is, but it's a writer's film and an actor's film. The directing is in the performances and the DOP was there to give it a certain tone. There's a lot of people who only like to watch modern day films. There are a lot of people who are adverse to black and white films and older acting styles. I'd wager that there are only a handful of 1950s films that the average film watcher would consider classics. People who watch 50s films either grew up on them, are lovers of old movies, or obsessives like me. If you're not part of those groups, you're probably going to view them through 2014 eyes. I don't think Meltzer is wrong on that point.

Is that what is meant by standards in this case, though? All About Eve is black and white, dialogue heavy and shot on set (apart from some establishing shots filmed by the Second Unit and using stand-ins.) The same script shot in 2014 would look dramatically different.

Assuming that the standard for what makes a good match is universal (and I'm not sure it is), then perhaps the basic concepts of structure don't change, but the content certainly does. When people watch older matches are they really judging the structure or are they judging the content and aesthetics? If people expect a certain type of aesthetic and a certain type of content from modern wrestling then is that not a standard? Is there even a set standard among fans or are we just talking about personal standards, and what's the dividing line between personal standards and tastes? You only have to look at modern lucha to see that the structure has changed and the fundamentals are less important than they used to be. There's a new standard in lucha where an apuestas match doesn't even look like an apuestas match anymore. The content has changed, the aesthetics have changed, the structure's changed, and if you're going to enjoy it then either your standards need to be flexible or your tastes have to change.

I'd echo similar thoughts to tim. I think it only becomes an issue when you have matches which were considered innovative at the time that are no longer considered good, or matches that were unknown or unappreciated that people now want to say were better than more famous bouts. If a bout is psychologically sound and you want to say it's a classic that's not really the same as doing a 180 on popular opinion. I suppose there's two ways to look at it. I can watch the early AAA stuff and think "this is shit, it doesn't fit my perceptions of what good lucha is," or I can look at it from the point of view of it being successful at the time and historically important. I'm not a historian so the latter holds no real interest to me, but it's a matter of how critical you become. If you dismiss something outright you're going to upset people. It's not difficult to understand why people who have no interest in revisionism are upset by revisionist ideas. I don't think it's a matter of standards changing in the sense that the holds or moves are getting better and therefore older wrestling is outdated. If that were the change then we'd all be singing from the same page. What people want to see in their wrestling changes. Some folks stay the same, some change, and in between is the gap between the Meltzers and the PWOs.

If you're new to lucha and looking for a place to start, you should follow Matt's columns on Segunda Caida.

A further note here: The first time they're referred to as CSG appears to be on the first Summer Action Series, specifically in the 7/12 six man and especially the 7/17 six-man. In the 7/12 match they're called a couple of different names, but in the 7/17 match they're called CSG throughout the match. So, if the Chiba camp was of any significance whatsoever, and if the August date is correct, then it's for a different reason than those listed above.

Anton Tejero vs. Walter Bordes (8/29/67) Man, this was awesome. The matwork here was fantastic with both guys really working an aggressive hold style where everything has a bit more leverage behind it. Tejero was pretty sensational for a guy who had the look of a heavy, and Bordes was supremely athletic. I loved the way they inched their way towards the striking and needling as neither man could get an advantage on the mat, and I also loved the technico style victory that Bordes pulled off with his athleticism. Phil called this a worthy addition to the canon and I couldn't agree more.

I didn't claim anything was EARTH SHATTERING IMPORTANT~! The commentator made out that it was EARTH SHATTERING-LY IMPORTANT~! The Chiba pictures have been reprinted again and again over the years. They were reprinted when Misawa died and again when Kobashi retired. The main picture was included in the 1998 Tokyo Dome Show program. Perhaps it's a story that's been repeated again and again and grown over time. Perhaps it wasn't important at the time... except that's a hot entrance in the match you posted, Taue tagging with Jumbo is either explained or acknowledged during his introduction, and AJPW began producing Cho Sedai-gun merchandise at some point after August. I don't know any more details and I'm not prepared to put any more time and energy into researching about it since a) it's not very important, the timeline is only off by a few months either way, c) I don't think anybody here cares, and d) you wouldn't believe it anyway. The lack of any mention in the WON or the JWJ is, to me, inconclusive since there are so many Japanese sources that refer to it, particularly the Misawa obituaries. I've never seen the JWJ. I don't know how he usually reported news or what he said about the Summer Action Series II. I was more interested in whether he reported the formation of CSG earlier in the timeline, but since he doesn't appear to mention when they officially formed then the JWJ simply doesn't provide any information about it. Why didn't he explain the Taue situation? From what you're saying it doesn't appear that he explained the kayfabe reason. What does he write about the opening night of that series? Because something's up with that entrance. That isn't a normal entrance. Why is the commentator so emotional? It's just another Misawa & Co. vs. Tsuruta & Co. trios that you and your colleague had been following for two series. It can't be that it's the first time that Misawa has wrestled Jumbo since Budokan since they had wrestled each other at least six times before the opening night of Summer Action Series II, including three times on television. What is this new start comparable to the beginning of All Japan 18 years before? How is this trios different from the July version? Anyway, here's another pic of the Chiba camp that somehow manages to float around 24 years later despite its irrelevancy.

I think it's technically Fighting Spirit Three Musketeers, but I don't think anybody wants to go around calling them that.

That's not the match where they wear their new attire. It may not have been important, but I'd just like to reiterate that it did happen. Here's the picture from the Chiba training camp: And here's a picture of Misawa's group from a telephone card. The kanji says Cho Sedai-gun.

The research that was in the news most recently was this -- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130614-soccer-heading-concussion-brain-injury-science/# Soccer players pick up concussions, but not from heading the ball.