ohtani's jacket

Sayama also wrote a book exposing the business. The same thing happened in England when Tony Walsh had an expose in the Sun. That was around the time Jackie Pallo blew the lid on the business in his autobiography. All pre-internet and non-WON influenced. The real vs. fake tabloid coverage was a big deal in the British papers long before '85. Walton used to rail against the Fleet Street press every so often.

Manami Toyota/Toshiyo Yamada vs. Akira Hokuto/Etsuko Mita, 10/8/89 Another "before they were stars" match. It must have been from a commercial tape since there was no commentary and the camera angles weren't television set-ups. Man, were the schoolgirls loud. They were really into Hokuto & Mita and shrieked whenever there was a nearfall. The match was non-stop spots, and we can safely say that Manami Toyota was Manami Toyota in 1989. The highlight for me was the bump she took off the top rope to the floor followed by a pretty nasty catch she took against the guard rail. Of course, Manami being Manami she was no selling it in no time whatsoever. Yamada has looked good in these tags. She's noticeably less stiffer than her 90s work, but she honestly looks like the heir apparent to Chigusa at this point. It's amazing the young talent AJW had at this point. One of the better future generations you'll see in any promotion.

You lost me at the mythical 1968 smart fan part. How do you know there weren't smart fans in 1968? Just because you imagine there weren't doesn't mean it's true. I could just as easily convince myself that there were smart fans in 1968 simply by stating so. Find me the evidence. There is quite a lot of evidence of fans not being smart -- riots, death threats, and so on. 20,000 people at MSG who'd throw a fit if Pedro lost, etc. etc. You find me the evidence to suggest that a significent proportion of them were "smart". The onus is not on me. I'm peddling the line of what is known. The onus is on those people claiming that there were smart fans discussing wrestling like the IWC in 1998 back in the 60s or even the fucking 1930s. They are the one making the claim, it is up to them to prove it. If you think that they're a myth then the onus goes right back on you. You've had the argument put to you that the media has always tried to expose pro-wrestling as fake (as far back as the 1870s or before) and that there was very little difference between how people viewed pro-wrestling then and now, i.e. the media thought it was fake, the public thought it was fake, and the fans didn't care. Of those fans, you don't think there were people capable of viewing it as a performance? In the 1960s? Does it really matter if they didn't use the same terminology or that there was no internet? I get your general point that people were unlikely to have been talking about wrestling the same way that we do in the 1930s, but what does it matter if they appreciated it the same way?

You lost me at the mythical 1968 smart fan part. How do you know there weren't smart fans in 1968? Just because you imagine there weren't doesn't mean it's true. I could just as easily convince myself that there were smart fans in 1968 simply by stating so.

Giant Haystacks vs. Pat Roach (2/3/82) You'd think if anybody could stand up to Haystacks outside of Big Daddy it would be Pat Roach, but this was bullshit. Both men scored a pinfall over each other and then they were both disqualified for fighting between rounds, but really it looked like they had no chemistry together whatsoever. Giant Haystacks vs. Tiger Dalibar Singh (1/8/87) Singh was the British Heavyweight champion here, so how would he fare against Haystacks? The answer was not very well. He got the DQ win, but was left writhing in pain from the elbow drop to the knee. You'd think Haystacks could do the odd job now and again, especially to put over the British Heavyweight champ. He did it for St. Clair at one point, but Singh could have done with the rub as he wasn't exactly Mr. Charismatic. After the bout, Brian Crabtree went off at Haystacks about finding a bigger, nastier opponent for him to face and Haystacks threw him across the ring. Now there's a match I want to see -- Giant Haystacks vs. Battlin' Brian Crabtree. (All three of the Crabtree brothers were wrestlers incidentally, even promoter Max Crabtree, who was apparently a decent light heavyweight in his day.) Giant Haystacks vs. Rasputin (4/20/88) This was set up by an angle a few weeks earlier where a Super Eight-Man Battle Royal came down to Haystacks and Rasputin, who were tag team partners at the time. Rasputin didn't want to fight his partner, but Haystacks had no qualms about eliminating the Irishman. So this was a short, hot bout with Rasputin looking for revenge. He wasn't a particularly good worker, but some of you may be familiar with him from the Fit Finlay documentary. Match was the usual DQ bullshit, but Haystacks was miffed at the decision and took a swing at referee Jeff Kaye. Kaye dropped like a sack of potatoes and Haystacks followed up with the big elbow. You don't see that much in WoS and it got a chuckle out of me. Wild Angus vs. Pat Roach (11/18/81) Well, after all that it was nice to see two big men who could actually work. Wild Angus was a Scotsman who looked a bit like Alan Moore. Not a great technical worker, obviously, but his work fit his character and he knew his way around the ring well enough. He was pretty well traveled and there's a chance you would have seen his work in Japan or the US. This went a bit long, but it was a decent antidote to the short changing on the Stax matches. Wild Angus vs. Caswell Martin (3/31/81) All right, I've decided. If Gravesend was the best venue for wrestling in the country then Hemel Hempstead was the worst. Every time they taped there, there would be these young guys who would not stop heckling the wrestlers. Wild Angus was Scottish so in this match they wouldn't stop harassing him with English football chants. It was distracting for the wrestlers, distracting for Walton on commentary and distracting for the viewer. A shame really, because Caswell Martin is almost always excellent and Angus could work, but they definitely seemed to be affected by it. Giant Haystacks/Big Daddy vs. Steve Veidor/Tibor Szakacs (4/21/76) This was a fun match. During the intros, I had no idea what to expect. On one side you had two of the all-time great professional wrestlers and on the other side you had Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, and there was this moment where Tibor was standing there in his yellow jacket looking cool as shit and I had no idea how he was gonna play it. But to Veidor and Szakacs' credit, they hammed it right up. Both guys had awesome strikes and Daddy and Haystacks bumped like fools for them, so it was a pretty good spectacle. Daddy sucked, but we know that. What surprised me was what good buddies he was with Haystacks in their leaner days. They were thick as thieves those two. It almost makes their later rivalry Shakespearean. Wild Angus vs. Honey Boy Zimba (4/7/81) If Hemel Hempstead is the worst crowd ever, then I need to give some props to this Guildford crowd for being an excellent wrestling crowd. They were right behind Honey Boy Zimba, who wasn't exactly a top drawer star, and kept on screaming to the ref about Angus breaking the rules even when he wasn't. In fact, it would've nice if they could have given the partisan crowd a Honey Boy win, but they'd spent a couple of weeks building Angus up as Giant Haystacks' new tag partner and promoting their first match against Daddy and Al Kilby. But Zimba got a lot of heat so this was enjoyable.

Lucero's timing is off at times and as I've mentioned before I think his tope is weak, but against Silver Star he was working the classic lucha title match style -- which was never the tightest matwork to begin with, not that I thought the matwork was that poorly applied -- so, it's an appreciation of the form and the style. Lucero can work fast paced lucha exchanges with young guys (better than Hechicero has shown he can in CMLL), it's just that Silver Star is slower than he used to be and can't bump like the young guys do. I like Hechicero as a worker. He was great in Monterrey. But I don't know when he's shown those qualities you're talking about in CMLL. Every match he had in the En Busca de un Idolo tournament was flawed in some way and he was off the pace in that trios that everyone loves. I thought Cavernario was considerably better in the tournament and in the trios. In fact, aside from heeling, I would say Cavernario fits the description you gave for Hechicero. That match against Cachorro was a good example. Really basic layout, but it kept the work focused and allowed Cachorro to shine. Hechicero gave technicos like Dragon Lee way too much offence and the matches became messy spot fests. Just because he tossed a guy around by the hair or something isn't enough to persuade me that he's really controlling things from the top. He'd do things like that in the opening few exchanges then try to work a three caida match in seven minutes instead of a simple one fall bout like a lightning match should be. He hasn't had a proper three fall singles match yet (to my knowledge) and it's hard to be a gold standard rudo in modern CMLL, so I'm not trying to hold him to impossible standards, I just think he could do a better job of laying out his matches, working at a rudo pace, having better rudo cut-off spots and carrying himself in the ring better w/ rudo mannerisms and a rudo attitude. Being a masked rudo isn't as easy as an unmasked one, but I'm not sure he's as good as rudo Panther, and Blue Panther wasn't exactly a great rudo. I can't understand why they didn't bring him in as a technico. His biggest strength is his killer offence, which you don't want a rudo to have too much of.

I must be the only one who thinks Hechicero hasn't looked that sharp in CMLL. His work right now reminds me of when the Radicals first jumper to the WWF and struggled to adapt. I don't know why they've got him playing rudo when he was a technico for so many years. It's like he's learning on the fly how to lay out a match as a rudo.

I think you should add the AJW and JWP dojos, the UWF dojo and the various British and Mexican gyms.

Stu was old in the period we're talking about. He had people like Hito, Sakurada and his son Bruce doing a lot of the hands on training, but stretching guys presumably taught them a lot about holds and was a workout at any rate.

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.