ohtani's jacket

Tanahashi vs. Anderson, 2/10/13 * This was pretty good. I don't know how good Anderson is usually, but this was the first time for me to see Tanahashi work a more traditional US pro-wrestling build. It's probably fair to say that Anderson provided most of the details since Tanahashi was really selling before launching into his signature stuff, but I'll say one thing for Tanahashi, he's versatile. Because he often gives the body of the match to his opponent he often winds up working his opponent's style and does a pretty good job of it most of the time. * Where this fell apart for me a bit as the finishing stretch or what you might call the final quarter. I thought Anderson, who'd been pretty good up until this point, got caught up in the adrenaline rush of posing and forgot to sell fatigue. The New Japan style is predicated on move after move and close-ups of exhausted wrestlers gasping for air. It doesn't seem like Anderson has mastered that yet. Tanahashi vs. Naito, 8/11/13 * Naito's a weird looking guy. I asked my wife if she knew what was up with this Naito guy and she said that she liked his style. His eyes remind me of Tatsuya Nakadai. * This was a great match except for the part where they did forearm smash exchanges. Then they blew the spot directly after that. That as the first time I've thought that something in a Tanahashi match is awful. * I would have marked out if Naito had won with that submission he had on Tanahashi, but it wasn't to be. There was a nice dragon suplex nearfall shortly afterwards that made up for it, but I would have praised Tanahashi to the moon if he'd tapped in that hold. The actual finish was good, mind you. Was that Kazuo Yamazaki marking out on commentary? * Man, Tanahashi is not afraid to put people over. This was the first time I've seen Naito and I was sucked right in. I can't understand these people who say Tanahashi is a bad wrestler. His matches are almost always exciting. He can't work the mat, he doesn't have great strikes and he's not a details guy, but he's a good worker. A bit repetitive at times, but he's having an outstanding year in terms of maint events. This was a strong four and a half stars, MOTYC.

Blue Panther/Negro Casas/Atlantis vs. Black Terry/Negro Navarro/Solar, CMLL 8/16/13 This was Blue Panther's 35th Anniversary match so he got to wear his mask again for the night and work with probably the five most recognisable lucha maestros in the business. The most notable thing from a Panther perspective was his opening exchanges with Solar. When I first got into lucha, Solar vs. Panther was supposed to be this legendary match-up kind of like Solar vs. Navarro before You Tube was inundated with Solar vs. Navarro. Later on, when I got wised up a bit, I realised there's not that much Solar vs. Panther on tape and what does exist isn't that legendary. Still, the exchanges here were fun and the type of lucha you don't see a lot of in CMLL these days. This was also a good opportunity to see Terry and Navarro work. There hasn't been a lot of good Terry & Navarro this year, not because they've slipped but because there hasn't been much that's made tape and Terry hasn't had a feud to sink his teeth into, which is the kind of wrestling he excels at as he's a real character actor type of wrestler. I liked that Navarro and Casas tried to get something going between falls instead of this being your typical maestros exhibit, and Terry vs. Casas, for the time that it lasted, looked like a match-up I'd like to see. This isn't essential, but it will appeal to maestros fans. Do yourself a favour and watch the TV version though as the handheld doesn't capture the matwork well. Rush/Terrible/Vangellys vs. Shocker/Negros Casas/Valiente, CMLL 9/3/13 The only reason to watch this is for the Casas/Rush exchanges, but after a slow beginning it picked up with the technicos' comeback. This feud seems to have breathed new life into Shocker and he actually looked pretty good here working between the ropes and not only punching. Vangellys was pretty solid too. It wasn't a match with a huge amount of substance, but they went at a decent clip and there were some cool spots. Valiente had a nice dive. As a weekly kind of Rush vs. Casas installment it was enjoyable. Actually, it was even pretty decent as a Rush showcase. What I'm getting at is that it's a recommendation. Super Porky vs. Rey Escorpion, hair vs. hair, CMLL 10/18/13 The first time I saw this I thought it sucked. Not because it isn't the bloodbath that I think cabellera contra cabellera matches should be, but because it sucked as a worked shoot. I didn't expect it to be RINGS and I braced myself for the fact that it was Super Porky and Rey Escorpion trying to do a worked shoot, but I still thought it sucked. Watching it again, I don't think it sucked. It wasn't any good, but there were a couple of spots I thought were okay. Still, it's not something they should ever try again. At least not with Porky or best two out of three falls.

According to Flair, he did it first in 1974 and got it from the Jerry Lee Lewis song Great Balls of Fire, and as we all know Flair is never wrong about these things.

Tanahashi vs. Shibata, 8/11/13 * This was my least favourite Tanahashi match so far. The style clash did nothing for me. Tanahashi did all right considering that matwork and strikes aren't really his forte, but Shibata is a poor shoot style worker. I'm pretty pig headed about what I like in shoot style, but I don't buy his shit for a second. He reminds me of a shitty UWF-i style worker. If anybody thinks he's good suggest some matches.

Axel Dieter vs. Pat Roach II (Hannover 1981) These two fought three times during the 1981 Hannover tournament. The first two matches ended without a winner and Dieter won the final match. This was one of the matches without a winner. Whether it was the first or the second, I'm not sure, but try as they might they didn't seem to have a great match in them. Roach dominated most of the bout before Dieter made a comeback in the final fall and the match ended with Dieter continuously throwing Roach over the top rope, presumably after time had expired. I love Pat Roach, but he couldn't deliver the same sort of beating as Moose Morowski. I'm guessing it's a stylistic difference between North America and England, since outside of the halls they never really brawled in England. Some of the finer details may have been better in close-up, but I wouldn't rank this stuff among the better moments of Pat's career. Dieter won the Hannover World Cup five or six times, which in my mind makes him like the German Tibor Szakacs, who won the Royal Albert Hall Tournament Trophy five times, but much like Szakacs we have nothing from Dieter's prime and he comes across in these '81 Hannover matches as having about as much charisma as Ray Steele. Axel Dieter/UFO vs. Ed Wiskoski/Moose Morowski (Hannover 9/15/81) This was probably the best tag match I've seen from Europe covering as much 60s-80s footage as I can find. It's probably no surprise that three out of the four competitors are North American. Christ knows why it had to go so long. Thirty minutes plus without a winner and without the hot finish it needed to be a surefire nomination for the Europe set, but still it was a proper tag match. Funnily enough, they didn't apply Southern style tag psychology, it was just solidly worked instead of being treated like some kind of amazing stip match where there's no wrestling. Portland fans may be interested in Wiskoski's work, perhaps.

Isn't there a possibility that they would have stuck with Race?

Tanahashi vs. Ishii, 8/2/13 * First time to watch a Tanahashi match against someone not named Okada or Suzuki. * This was a good match. Ishii strikes me as a younger, more mobile version of Suzuki. He hasn't got the same maestro aura as Suzuki, but he's got more high end offence, which is how he put Tanahashi away. His victory was probably the best thing about this, as I thought they did a fantastic job of going beyond the beat of where Tanahashi would ordinarily go on to win and having Ishii take his chance. Tanahashi again sold well and put Ishii over strongly. * I thought this was a feather in Tanahashi's cap, but you look at the WON rating and it's **** 3/4. That's insane. It's closer to *** 3/4 while still being a really strong performance. Tanahashi may be overrated, but it's not his fault.

How good were the Misioneros supposed to be work wise? From the footage we have, they don't look as good as the Brazos or Infernales.

Tanahashi vs. Suzuki, 1/4/12 * Here's an example of a match with a stronger build. They worked out of a side headlock to begin with, then there was a bit of niggle and Suzuki took control of the match, working Tanahashi over and cutting off his comeback attempts. I didn't love the ramp stuff, but it served its purpose. Suzuki looked far better in this match than he did in their October bout and was much more of a "maestro." He even paid homage to Fujiwara by copying his headbutt style. Tanahashi sold the beating well and this was probably the most solid of his matches so far in terms of substance. * Where the match went astray was Tanahashi's big finish. Suzuki cut off his comeback attempts two or three times during the course of the match, but it was obvious that Tanahashi was going to nail him with a bunch of big moves and win the match. The cut-off spots were really good with Suzuki finding imaginative ways to cut off some of Tanahashi's signature stuff, but the finishing stretch seemed slightly off. It wasn't so much that it was unrealistic for Tanahashi to reel off a bunch of moves and suddenly Suzuki is as damaged as him. I get that wrestling trope. It just wasn't timed as well as it could have been. I think if you took the finish to the Oct match and tacked it on to the body of the Jan match you'd have a great match. * This was still pretty good, though. I'd say it topped out at around 4 stars. It was very much a Suzuki performance (moreso than their Oct match, IMO), but Tanahashi sold well. He likes to work light, but he did work slightly stiffer against Suzuki. His shovel punches are slightly better than his forearms.

I'd also like to see some clarification on Evart and A & H Video Sales Representatives and who was responsible for what.

Tanahashi vs. Okada, 8/12/13 * The beginning of this was weak. It seems these two can't fill in time unless they do limb work. Here they drifted in and out of limb work to fill in the first two thirds of a 30 minute draw. I'm no fan of the 30 minute draw, even in the old Champion Carnival days, so I don't care if you have to go out there and kill a bunch of time, but these guys would be so much better off if they could work the mat. Tanahashi working over Okada's arm to weaken the Rainmaker isn't compelling when you've already seen it two or three times, and I'm sick of that Okada guardrail spot. That's a crutch if ever I saw one in wrestling. If they can't work the mat, and it doesn't seem like that can, just have Okada beat Tanahashi up for a sustained period of time and have Tanahashi sell, instead of this even stevens business they partake in. * Okada looked off here. Little moments of hesitation and awkwardness. I'm not sure he's all that comfortable in his frame. He has to bend over a lot and it leads to a lot of that awkwardness. I'm not sure he's got the hang of how to work big and how to work small. * The first two thirds were forgettable, but the final third was enjoyable. If this was joined in progress for the final 12 or 15 minutes, I'd probably have a higher opinion of it. It seemed like they worked some new moves into their finishing stretch. The tit for tat stuff is their major strength and they're able to lace it with some terrific nearfalls. The final attempt at the Rainmaker as time expired was better than 99% of how all 30 minute draws end. * Overall, it wasn't that interesting. I'm not even sure it was better than their Tokyo Dome match. Maybe three and a quarter stars.

Japan is the second biggest market for pro-wrestling in the world so it deserves a fair degree of representation. The trouble with borderline candidates going in is that they require less overall votes to gain 60% support and with most of the major candidates already in the Hall there's plenty of elbow room for fringe candidates. It wouldn't surprise me if Taue and Akiyama both get in since they look much stronger on a ballot with Han, Tamura and Hamada than they would on earlier ballots. I'm not sure what you can do about it, though, short of no longer inducting Japanese candidates. If you removed the geographical element and required them to get 60% on the overall ballot, they wouldn't get in, but then there might not be any inductees. I suppose the voters could always refrain from voting, but I think it's clear that people are going to vote for Japanese candidates from here on out regardless of how good business is.

Why are Blue Panther and Satanico on the cover? That is them, right? If so, where is the lucha section? Does he agree with me that Satanico is the greatest lucha worker of the tape era? Is Blue Panther better off without the mask? Will Cien Caras ever make the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame? El Dandy so underrated he's overrated?

Some of this we can piece together. The time slots were as follows: NJPW 4/6/73 to 9/26/86, Fri 20:00-20:55 (later 20:00-20:54) 10/13/86 to 4/6/87, Mon 20:00-20:54 4/7/87 to 9/87, Tue 20:00-20:54 10/5/87 to 3/88, Mon 20:00-20:54 4/88 to 4/93, Sat 16:00-16:54 4/93 onward, Sat 0:00-00:54 (later 0:00 to 0:30) AJPW 10/7/72 to 3/31/79, Sat 20:00-20:55 (later 20:54) or 23:45 to 0:39 (depending on baseball) 4/79 to 9/85, Sat 17:30 to 18:24 10/19/85 to 3/26/88, Sat 19:00-19:54 4/3/88 to 4/1/90, Sat 10:30-11:26 The ratings are probably available from Video Research at a cost.

The numbers can be argued, what's harder to combat is the rap that he was apathetic. Here are a couple of interesting articles on Bellamy from before he died that explore his career: http://prohoopshistory.com/2012/10/17/the-...-hawks-bullets/ http://hoopsanalyst.com/blog/?p=400 The latter has some pretty decent research; the author's taken his time at any rate. But I do wonder if there's a substitute for actually having "been there", because that rap that he didn't play hard enough, was detached and couldn't win is easy for a guy like Simmons to slip into as I think he did in his basketball book, and the numbers are there to support it if you don't buy the expansion team theory. There are a lot of excuses thrown out on Bellamy's behalf, but perhaps that's because his rep was a little unfair. When I brought Bellamy up I was thinking more along the lines of the more recent trend (I think it's a recent trend) of taking a deeper look at 60s numbers (Wilt, Robertson etc.) to determine why they put up such huge numbers, which is not analysis that I think factors into Hall of Fame perception, but rather a million was Wilt overrated internet arguments.

More catchen... Otto Wanz vs. Don Leo Jonathan (Graz 7/15/78?) Otto Wanz vs. Don Leo Jonathan (Graz 7/12/80?) Had some trouble dating these. The first match was a 45 minute handheld with slightly poor VQ (it was B&W basically), while the other was 12 minutes of colour footage. The trouble is that each uploader dated their match as 7/12/80. Originally, I thought the second match was a pro-shot version of the first, but the finish was different. The 45 minute match may be the 1978 CWA World Heavyweight Title change as the celebration at the end was befitting a title change, and Jonathan seemed to look older in the second match in so much as you can tell from a B&W handheld, but I don't see how we can have a full handheld from 1978. Anyway, Wanz was younger here and in better shape. Jonathan was one of probably a litany of big men that Wanz faced over of his career and both these matches were pretty classic Wanz -- take a beating, make a comeback, wash, rinse and repeat. Jonathan took some pretty big bumps for a guy who was nearing the end of his career. I haven't seen a ton of Don Leo Jonathan, so I'm not sure how good a showcase this was or whether he was restricted by his role as the generic cheating American with his all-in wrestling style, but it worked well and the pair were a good match-up. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed actually watching pro-shot stuff, though. It's so hard to concentrate on handhelds. You miss so many details without the benefit of medium close-up. Klaus Wallas vs. Jörg Chenok (Bamberg 4/3/83) I quite like Klaus Wallas. He was an Austrian judoka who represented Austria at the '76 Olympics, if I'm not mistake, and debut around '78. He seemed to get the hang of wrestling pretty well. He knew how to clobber people and how to sell and struck me as a guy with good timing. This was a decent showcase for him and featured some neat work from Chenok as well. Axel Dieter/Eugen Wiesberger vs. Ivan Strogoff/Klaus Wallas (1983) Decent tag match. Better than anything I've seen from England in the same time frame, but I don't think we're ever going to find a tag match from Europe that ranks among the greatest tag matches of all time. There was a loose FIP structure here and some nice work from Wisberger on the face side, along with some strong Dieter segments and more good wrestling from Wallas, but ultimately it as just a match. As a bit of an extra, if you go to around 5:10 on this clip, you can see the workers camping at one of the summer German tournaments and Alex Wright is practicing backbends at the age of 10 --

I understand your points about hotcakes and apathy, but if you were to appoint a screening committee and an honours committee and have a select group of people vote in Hall of Famers, the quality control would probably be better, but I think Dave would lose interest quickly and probably his readers too. I'm sure the majority of voters don't take it any more seriously than the WON end of year awards, but even with ballots that are well thought out I've noticed a pretty big discrepancy in who gets voted for. I think the key thing is that are people working hard to heighten the awareness of different candidates. Overlooked historical candidates have been voted in & the bios for Atlantis and Wagner were informative if nothing else. People's research could do with more support, but overall the good outweighs the bad in my view. Modern stars going in too early is going to continue to be a problem as is workrate favourites being inducted who didn't draw, but that's indicative of the state of the business, particularly in Japan. I doubt Dave is going to close shop on Japan until someone comes along who can sell out famous buildings.

Sayama's reputation is one of work and influence as much as drawing, at least that's my understanding of it. If he were on the ballot this year, I'm sure opinion on his work wouldn't be an issue as the sphere of Dave influence regarding his work is greater than our circle, but I have a hard time believing there wouldn't be any revisionist arguments about how good a worker he was. Theoretically, that would weaken his case, at least in the eyes of this board. It wouldn't stop him going into the Hall because he's not a work only candidate, but it's the best example I could come up with for "judging work on how it was viewed at the time" vs. "judging how it's viewed now." I don't really have a problem with judging through 1982 eyes in this context. I think the problem with Dave's argument is when he dismisses things out of hand because nobody thought so at the time. Okay, but if saying that Bellamy was underrated and suffered from playing on bad teams and being traded a lot instead of putting up his early numbers for the Knicks, who he probably would've been drafted by in an ordinary year, is revisionism then is Dave's point correct or are you advocating deeper analysis and contextualization?

Which is no different from any other HOF. None of them are perfect beasts. Every year the International Rugby Board hands out international rugby awards chosen by a select group of ex-players. Every year there is controversy. This year the International Rugby Players Association have decided to run their own awards also chosen by ex-players. They're just as head scratching. It doesn't matter whether it's the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame or NBA All-Star voting, it's never perfect and people will always disagree. To argue that the WON HOF is a clusterfuck because people don't like certain people who got voted in is a pretty flippant remark. Good things happen in regard to the Hall and not so good things, but the Hall itself has merit otherwise this thread is a colossal waste of time.

No Hall of Fame is perfect. If the WON HOF were perfect then there wouldn't be any room for debate and where would the fun be in that?

Fortunately, it's possible for two or more things to be big at the same time. Was Hogan a bigger deal than Hogan? Figure that one out. I'm not sure movies are the right comparison really, since Hogan was more of a television star than a film star. A television star who due to the nature of his business drew stadium crowds the same size as sports stars and movie acts. And he did that from '84-89 or '85-89. That's a big run and a lot of eyeballs.

Axel Dieter vs. Moose Morowski (Hannover 1981) This was pretty awesome. While the Zrno and Della Serra matches have some nice holds, this was a Dieter match with an actual narrative as Moroswki beat on Dieter and Dieter had to make a comeback. Dieter was a pretty decent brawler and from the limited footage we have his brawls are perhaps more compelling than his technical matches. I'm not sure that this is as good as their 1980 match, but it was the best of his '81 Hannover matches thus far. Axel Dieter vs. Le Grand Vladimir (Hannover 1981) This followed along similar lines, although it was shorter and Vladimir wasn't quite as interesting as Morowski. Mainly it lent weight to this idea I have that Dieter was most fun to watch when he was brawling. Bull Power vs. Klaus Wallas (8/31/86) Finally, Vader was matched against someone who gave as good as he got. This was the most fun of the early Vader CWA stuff. Wallas just whaled on him repeatedly and Vader was his usual merciless self. Bull Power vs. Steve Wright/Eddie Steinblock (1987) As far as handicap matches go, this was pretty good. Wright and Steinblock had some fun double team moves working over Vader's arm and Wright did a bunch of cool shit once they had Power neutralised. Vader kind of shook off the arm work later on, but that's okay because he was busy pummeling Steinblock, which is what you want from Vader. Wright got sick of it, though, dropkicked the ref and choked Vader with some sort of cord, while the crowd got all excited and started gathering around the ring and thumping on the canvas. Fun clip.

If this thread keeps up, I might end up having one of those weird PWO induced dreams... Well, let me tell you something brutha. Everywhere I go people keep saying the name Molly Ringwald.

Of the top of my head, George Kidd, Mike Marino, Les Kellett, Masambula, Count Bartelli, Steve Logan and Ricki Starr and possibly The Wild Man of Borneo, Dirty Jack Pye and Dirty Dominic Pye all deserve consideration for European section. Possibly even the likes of Albert Wall, Tibor Szakacs and even the Saints and the Royals. In all honesty, I think the Europe section is bollocks at present, but I don't think that Dave is interested in Europe or in opening the floodgates. I don't think my watching old school European wrestling in 2013 and determining what's good wrestling holds much weight compared with historical research and accounts from people who were fans at the time. If somebody says that X was never a good worker, perhaps there's enough footage to dispute that, but when it gets into the territory of how big a star someone was, you'd have to defer to the folks who were there, especially since there isn't a lot of attendance records for Europe and we're often left to look at card placement on big shows. There's also bias that needs to be eliminated. I don't like Saint's matches for the most part and Rocco annoys the shit out of me by not wrestling the way I like and the way I know he can, but that type of stuff needs to be ignored when judging how important they were historically or even how good they were as a worker, IMO. In my own private viewing I can have any opinion about workers that I like, but objectively I think you need to weigh up all the factors even if there are a ton of guys working at the same time who in 2013 I think were better than Rocco or Saint. Otherwise, I think there's a danger of saying "Rocco wasn't the first or only guy to push a more workrate orientated style, look blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah were doing it first" when the perception that Rocco was the first guy to do it was a big part of both his rep and stardom and ultimately part of his candidacy.

I'm all for positive revisionism, but I also think perceptions have their place. I think Fujiwara is one of the greatest workers ever, certainly one of the greatest Japanese wrestlers ever, but that wasn't the perception of Fujiwara at the time among Japanese fans or tape traders. You can probably find positives for Fujiwara in terms of drawing, but it doesn't change the perception that he was considered another tier down from the truly top stars of his era. I'm not sure he warrants being on the ballot to be honest, other than the standards for being on the ballot aren't that stringent.