ohtani's jacket

It's worth noting that a lot of the British workers entered North America through Canada presumably because of Commonwealth laws. It's a well known fact that working for Joint Promotions didn't pay particularly well. That's why the heavyweights spent so much time abroad touring in other countries. The wrestlers who worked strictly in the UK supplemented their income by taking on other jobs or owning pubs. The fact that the NWA champion rarely toured Europe brings into question the prestige of European wrestling at the time. I don't know how well France paid, but I imagine the situation was similar to the UK. I don't really see how anyone from Europe can be considered a bigger star than the NWA champions of the 70s, Bruno, Baba & Inoki, Dusty Rhodes, Andre the Giant, etc. Many of those stars were wrestling dates all over the world.

The money at the time was in the US and Japan. If the money had been better in the UK and France, you would have seen more big name stars tour there.

Kidd was a household name in the 60s, but his candidacy and rep is really based on the fact that he was champion for so many years and that all of the lightweights that followed, Saint, Cortez, Breaks, etc., copied parts of his repertoire. George Kidd footage from the 60s is one off the holy grails of WoS tape collecting, though I suspect that he worked a lot of showcase matches as many of the bouts are against younger opponents. The one that stands out to me is the bout against Modesto Aledo on the Royal Art Hall Show that Prince Phillip attended, though I'm not sure if film exists. Many of his title matches were held in Scotland and I'm not sure they were taped.

The Jacky Corn vs Billy Howes match from Cup Final day is the best Brit vs Frenchman match I’ve seen from either side of the channel.

This is certainly true. I also think the medium plays a part as television was constantly changing. Wrestling was a popular TV product in the early days of television as it was relatively easy to broadcast, but it had a definite shelf life.

There is a decline in European wresting across the same time period. One of the strengths of the 50s and 60s footage is that you had a bunch of foreign workers available to square off against the locals. And those foreign workers had a lot of places where they could work. As the work dried up, so did the talent pool. There was still a very good group of lightweight wrestlers on France n the 70s, but as with many other territories around the world, the heavyweight pool was dwindling, and it's the heavyweights who are so often the draw in wrestling. That said, whoever the booker was, and whatever the promotion was that was getting TV sporadically in the late 70s and 80s, they were the ones who made the decision to put the gimmick stuff on television. The alternative, I suppose, was putting two dinosaurs on TV and having them grapple, but they were still cheapening the product with the product they put on TV. It may have worked on house shows, but doesn't make for great looking television.

There were gimmicks and showiness long before 1971. There was a lot of that stuff going on in the 50s and 60s, more than made TV considering how many weekly shows there were in Paris, the snippet of it that made weekly TV, and the stuff that was going on out in the wop-wops. There was a definite decline in the quality of French wrestling over the course of the 1970s, and particularly into the 80s, but it had nothing to do with Flesh Gordon and it's a mistake to think he was the face of the decline or a poster child for everything that was wrong with Catch at the time. That may have been how it looked when all we had available was the trashy 90s stuff he did, but it was clear that a good worker in the early 80s and that Catch simply lacked the infrastructure it had enjoyed in the 50s and 60s. It's hard to piece together the decline of French wrestling as we don't have all the facts. We're basing almost all the information we have on whatever is in the archives. All we can tell for sure is that there were several promotors competing with each other in Paris in the 50s and 60s and eventually they whittled down to only a few. Whether that was because of business or the promoters retiring, I'm not sure. I would assume that it involved a decline in business, but there may have been other factors.

The trouble with this point of view, IMO, is when you're looking for historical information on how important a wrestler was historically, or culturally, you tend to look for the positives without taking a broader approach. If you look at AJW from the 70s and 80s, was there anything that AJW was doing that was entirely original? They were basically copying trends from both the entertainment industry and from within wrestling. Even the business model you're describing was unoriginal. It seems impressive within the context of wrestling but not within Japan. The Beauty Pair may be worthy of induction, but I wouldn't sound the trumpet too loudly.

Congrats. I saw the other day that Kohli has almost scored as many ODI centuries as Tendulkar, and I was like, when did that happen?

There are a lot of WoS reviews in the Microscope section of the board. Originally, I reviewed matches on another site and didn't copy those over to this board.

Bob Backlund vs. Adrian Adonis (WWF, 1/18/82) I was excited to watch this as it had been years since I'd seen it. It's the epitome of a slow burner. It takes a long time to get to the heights that you want it to reach. The finishing stretch is fantastic. It's everything you want from Adonis and Backlund. The working leading up to it? It's okay, but instead of building the anticipation it feels like they're holding back. I can see folks going either way on whether they think this is a great match. I'm not gonna lie, I thought the Buddy Rose match was better, but like I said, I can imagine someone else having a totally different take. Bob Backlund vs. Adrian Adonis (WWF, 3/28/82) I can't find the Philly match anywhere so I had to settle for their lumberjack match. I thought this was miles better than the Backlund vs. Rose lumberjack match. Better use of the lumberjack gimmick, insane heat from the Maryland crowd, and basically Adonis and Backlund throwing haymakers at each other for 15 minutes. I ended up thinking this was a really good match. Some great nearfalls, some tremendous camera shots and an awesome finish that was every bit as sensational as Vince made it out to be. Probably the best sprint version of an around-the-horn WWF feud that I can remember seeing.

I thought Daddy looked competent against John Elijah, and allegedly he has a similar match against Colin Joynson, which exists in at least one person's collection that I'm aware of. He looked decent in his other mid-70s work as well. So, I don't agree that there's no evidence that he was ever a competent wrestler.

I finished reading Naoki Urasawa's Monster, which is hands down one of the best written manga series you'll ever read. Superbly well-crafted, and one of the best comics of the 90s for my money. I'm contemplating watching the anime, but I might jump into another Urasawa series instead.

I picked up on that, too, but I'm not sure how much you can read into Vince's commentary. Bob Backlund vs. Buddy Rose (WWF, 10/16/82) This was a huge step down from their Madison Square Garden bout. Miles better than their lumberjack bout, but nowhere near as special as the MSG match. I think it's because it was more of a classic heel performance from Buddy than the challenge he put up at the Garden. Now, Buddy is good at the chicken shit heel stuff (some would say a master.) He gets into some serious jawing with the fans at ringside, and there's a dude with a "Playgirl" Buddy Rose cardboard sign, so Rose is definitely tapping into the heat he's generated, but watching Backlund pace back and forth like a caged animal while Buddy stales on the outside isn't what I wanted to see. The finish is rubbish, but explains why the return bout was a lumberjack match. It's a decent match if you like watching Buddy draw heat, but not a memorable Backlund performance by any stretch of the imagination.

Bob Backlund vs. Buddy Rose (WWF, 8/30/82) This is such a fantastic match. Easily one of the best matches from Bobs title reign. I think there's two reasons for that. The first reason is that Bob was incredibly over at the Garden, and the second reason is that I don't think anyone expected Playboy Buddy Rose to give him such a good fight. I'm not even sure Vince thought Rose was going to be quite this good. What made the bout special was that it was more of a wrestling match than a stooge performance. I don't know who gave Buddy the keys to wrestle that night, but Backlund was totally on board with it and the crowd seemed to appreciate it. Interestingly, they couldn't reproduce this performance in Philly. Perhaps the heat made it magical. From memory, the same thing happened with Adonis vs. Backlund, but I need to watch the tapes again. Don't let 'em ever tell you that Bob wasn't over in New York.

Ken Patera vs. Bob Backlund (WWF, 7/26/80) This was a dead rubber match, but lots of fun. I feel it's safe to say that Patera was one of Backlund's best opponents. I've said it before, but I don't particularly care for special guest referees, or referees getting physically involved in a match in any sort of way, but Gorilla Monsoon is winning me over as a guest referee, and I got a kick out of the exchange he had with Patera where he gave me the big clothesline. Ivan Koloff vs. Bruno Sammartino (WWF, 3/26/79) This was during the period where Bruno and Backlund were in separate main events. It was never gonna happen, but I would have loved to have seen a Backlund vs. Bruno match at one of these shows. I'm totally down on Koloff in the WWF and this bout didn't help matters. Bruno over-extended himself as well, and his limitations as a worker were glaringly obvious. I'm sure I reacted to this more negatively than most people would, but I've got issues with Koloff. Before the bout, a babyfaced Ted DiBiase was introduced to the crowd. Bob Backlund vs. Buddy Rose (WWF, 11/25/82) I'm not sure why I chose this bout to watch first. It's a short, workrate sprint where the lumberjacks at ringside do little more than cheerlead. The post-match locker room interview is more interesting than the bout. I love Bob's low key, serious interviews where he talks about the psychology of wrestling. Kal Rudman probing Bob was highly amusing.

Ken Patera vs. Bob Backlund (WWF, 5/19/80) I've seen this match several times before but this is the first time I truly enjoyed it. I'm not going to go on a big spiel about how it's one of the best matches of the era since the folks that know that know it already, but I do think it's interesting that the match draws a lot of attention even today since it was WON MOTY and is probably the most watched match from the era outside of Patterson/Slaughter. I never had much love for it with that casual level of interest, however watching it in context, I thought it was great. By that I don't necessarily mean that you have to see the match that set it up, or any key matches, but that it helps if you get a feel for the era before worrying about whether it stands up to other matches.

Ken Patera vs. Bob Backlund (WWF, 1/21/80) There's a different dynamic to Backlund vs. Patera that is more wrestling and strength based than the Bruno feud. Backlund was such a strong guy that it makes sense that they would grapple more. Not that Bruno was any slouch in the strength department, but he wasn't half the wrestler that Backlund was. This was a pretty intense wrestling match that turned into a wild pull apart brawl based largely on how tense it had been. I love the way they treated a ref bump in these days. The ref was seriously hurt the way you'd expect a ref to be if one of these guys bumped into him, and had to be stretchered to the back. Really nice set up for the Texas Death Match.

Bruno Sammartino vs. Ken Patera (WWF, 11/8/80) I kind of liked this more than their 70s bouts, largely because I think Patera was a better worker in 1980 than he was in '77. I also liked the way that Bruno went after Patera's arm instead of just doing the typical kick-punch stuff. Patera sold it beautifully and it tied into the grappling they did in the beginning where Patera had to resort to a hair pull because he couldn't match Bruno's strength. The finish worked as well, as the commentators put over why Patera resorted to using a chair and even tried to make it seem like Patera was trying to break Bruno's neck when Patera applied his full nelson on Bruno after the bell.

Ken Patera vs. Billy White Wolf (WWWF, 6/11/77) Things had changed for Ken in the months since his MSG debut as he was drawing shit tons of heat before the angle where he broke Billy White Wolf's neck. I love these old-school WWF injury angles and this is one of the best. Bruno Sammartino vs. Ken Patera (WWWF, 8/29/77) This is a shitty Texas Death Match even by WWF standards, but if we focus on the positives then Ken was drawing a shit ton of heat compared to his debut, the parts where Bruno beat him up were exciting, and he had a fun crowd taunt. There was no blood and the finish was "controversial," but mostly I was surprised that they didn't put over Patera's neck breaker more given Bruno's neck history. Seemed like a missed opportunity.

Bruno Sammartino vs. Ken Patera (WWWF, 1/17/77) This was Patera's debut in the Garden. Bruno's young protégé, Larry Zbyszko, is introduced to the crowd before the match, which is amusing in hindsight. The match was a decent start to Patera's feud with Bruno, though it works best whenever Bruno is on offense and Patera is selling. Ken needed to add a few moves to his arsenal to be interesting as the bearhug doesn't really cut it. It's interesting how the WWF was still using scrawny, older refs at this stage. They sure loved a controversial finish, and not a lot of them made sense. Patera didn't seem to get much heat from his win here, so it's interesting that they did repeat business.

Bob Backlund vs. Pat Patterson (WWF, 10/20/79) This is one of the better Backlund vs. Patterson matches. It starts off with the typical babyface shine where Bob kicks the heel's ass, but the back half of the match is a great scrap where Pat gigs like a mofo. They do a great finish where it seems like the ref is about to call for a blood stoppage, but Bob shoves him out of the way and gets DQ'ed. Not sure why this doesn't get talked about more. It's just as good as the July match and better than the cage match. Bruno Sammartino vs. Greg Valentine (WWF, 10/22/79) This is a fun match that never rises above the level of good, but it's still cool to see Bruno work with the Hammer. The interesting part to me was that they sold this as Greg's chance to work his way back to the number one contender slot yet they didn't give us any idea of what Bruno's motivation was at this stage. Bruno Sammartino vs. Ivan Koloff (WWWF, 10/13/75) This was clipped and aired in some capacity years later with Gorilla Monsoon commentary. It was too clipped to judge completely, but I'm not really sold on Koloff in the WWF and this didn't help matters. Bob Backlund vs. Pat Patterson (WWF, 11/17/79) This was a weak end to their feud, but unless they were prepared to subvert their usual formula of Backlund dominating the bout, I don't see how it could have been any different.

Man, CM Punk is getting good. I know I bagged him a bit in the Homicide match, but aside from that, he has three strong performances for the month of October. He was too well-respected in the indie scene to be in contention for Most Improved in the WON awards, but I see his name there in the honorable mentions, so I'm not alone in my thinking. Would definitely make my ballot along with the likes of Randy Orton and Averno. Oddly, it was Joe who finished in the top 5 whereas I would definitely have Joe above Punk heading into the year. What I liked about this match is that it was mostly built around Low Ki's strong style thug gimmick yet was still a really good match. These guys were perfectly capable of working an indie workrate respect match, but they showed here that they could do the storyline stuff just as effectively. And still work stiff. I like Low Ki's old gimmick better, but he hasn't been doing much Stateside lately, so hopefully it helps him get back in the mix.

Well. this lived up to the hype. Not necessarily from the standpoint of being one of the greatest matches of all-time, but within the context of 2004 and all of the buildup and anticipation for the match. The decision to have the commentators let the match speak for itself was interesting. On one hand, I didn't have to listen to them spell out every little thing for me, but on the other hand, we lost track of how much time was remaining. I couldn't understand why the ring announcer didn't give a warning about how much time was remaining. Instead, he did a random countdown of the last 10 seconds, which wasn't in sync with Joe's spot. The finish wasn't great for the live audience, who wanted to see a result, but the match delivered in spades. During the middle of the year, I couldn't understand why WWE did so poorly in the WON awards compared to ROH, but after seeing this match, and the mess RAW turned into, I can see where the voters were coming from. Definitely one of the best matches of the year.

God bless, Yuki Ishikawa. Slightly out of shape, wearing ridiculous looking MMA trunks, and still one of the better workers plying his trade. Ito was an exciting prospect but this didn't reach any great heights. It was a fun Ishikawa performance but didn't do a lot for his opponent, who was coming off that great Tamura fight.