ohtani's jacket

I don't know if it's true, but HTM claims they never really trusted him again after he refused to lose to Savage. After he put Warrior over, he slid pretty far down the card and he's always bitching that he's not a road agent and shit like that. Does he get any sort of legend kickback?

The magazines are printing the average household rating not the audience share. And it's for the Kanto region. There are no national ratings.

Thus reminds me of when Jesse Ventura sold out at Wrestlemania VI and admit that Hulkamania will live forever. Speaking of cultural icons, I knew this guy who heckled Rick Derringer once by requesting Real American at one of his shows. Turns out Derringer has had a change of heart about performing his iconic song. Here's Real American better than ever, jeez:

I dunno how I feel about that. These days when something happens in popular entertainment you have real time commentary in the form of twitter and instant reaction on the internet. I have no doubt that kids today are more interested in taking selfies and connecting through social media than watching the 1001 greatest films ever made, but there's still shit they're heavily into. Right now One Direction are big in Japan and I'd argue that there's never been a better time for young Japanese fans to really get into an overseas foreign artist because of the internet. Beside which, the number of people who are interested in exploring pop culture from the past has always been small compared to those interested in the here and now. We're in the minority on that account. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if there was at least one old thing that most of your students had discovered somehow whether it's through their parents or the internet. I do get the gist of your argument. When I was a kid there were only two channels before a third one was added and you'd all watch the same stuff after school and on weekends and rent the same videos and games from the video store. There is far greater choice these days. But I also feel that things like memes are modern pop culture and that popular culture has simply moved on. No matter how much I chew it over some kid not knowing MacGyver, Bill Cosby or The Muppet Show isn't indicative of some decline in popular culture. I had an English teacher in high school who used to boast that of course he understood all the popular culture references in The Simpsons that we didn't so evidently he felt we didn't know much about pop culture in the late 90s. What's more, you need to give these kids a chance. When I was 20, I hadn't begun watching classic or foreign cinema yet and was still listening to grunge music. They still have a lot of experience to be gained. When I was 20, all I would have known of Bogie or Cagney would be parodies like Daffy Duck so don't be too hard on them. The kids are all right. They just like shitty One Direction.

They have their own pop culture. I haven't watched a TV series religiously since the Sopranos, in fact I haven't even owned a TV for the past few years. People my own age ask me whether I watch numerous types of shows but I don't watch new movies let alone TV. I grew up in the 80s, but I'm also a product of the internet. I watch 1950s movies, read 70s comics books, watch old wrestling and listen to everything from 50s jazz to 70s funk, all of which I discovered through the internet. I have no grasp on modern popular culture. I'm basically stuck in the past, but if I were lecturing I don't think I'd make jokes about ALF. I don't see any reason why these kids should be overly familiar with the pop culture from my generation when I'm not overly familiar with the pop culture from theirs. One day these kids are going to be surprised that someone younger doesn't know a meme that was big in their youth, etc. I think you're downplaying the generational divide. My younger sister's generation remember 00s shows more fondly than I do. For me they were rubbish compared to the 80s and 90s stuff that I grew up on. If pop culture were this ubiquitous thing that we all experienced at the same time we'd never lose touch with it, but it's obvious that it's something we're most closely attached to in our youth. And I don't see how you can be disgusted about people not knowing Bill Murray. Bill Murray is a brilliant actor but he's only iconic in the minds of cinephiles. He's not Bogie or Cagney or Jimmy Dean.

I can see how someone could see that.

According to Mr. Mom's producer, Lauren Shuler Donner, Hughes was fired and they brought in a group of TV writers. I know there were times when Hughes tried to fob off failures like National Lampoon's Class Reunion by saying they'd butchered his original script, which the director Michael Miller steadfastly denied and produced Hughes' script to prove it, but Hughes was pretty upfront about being fired for being a pain in the ass.

Didn't Nash and his wife separate at some point? Hokuto and Sasaki are still going strong 18 years after they married. They're still on TV a lot and frequently appear in commercials.

This we should most definitely do. Who can forget that Canadian crooner Henry Burr or the irresistible Alice Joyce? Bigger star? Hogan or Steve Guttenberg? Hogan or Al Bundy? Hogan or Kathleen Turner? The funny thing about Hogan is that outside of North America he was more famous than Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Joe Montana or Wayne Gretzky. In Southern Europe in the 90s Magic and Bird were much bigger than Hogan (I imagine Central Europe too but I'd be only guessing). I think the difference is that your dad would know Magic, Bird and Hogan, but your grandpa wouldn't know Hogan. Montana would mostly be known by teenage males as the guy on the NFL video game on the SEGA consoles. Gretzky is a total no name. I know he's a hockey player but I couldn't pick him out of a lineup. Before satellite it was next to impossible to see NBA games. When satellite took off, it was Jordan who led the NBA boom. Bird and Magic were basically out of the picture after '92, though I'm sure they were a big deal in Barcelona that year. In their primes, they were basically inaccessible compared to wrestling unless Europe had some major NBA coverage I'm unaware of.

Well, it depends what you mean by "outdated". Is Wizard of Oz outdated or has it become a part of our collective cultural memory / conscious? Poppins? The actor Bill Murray? The Godfather? In my mind, all of these things aren't "outdated" but are "ingrained" in our culture. Seemingly (and sadly), however, it's just in my mind. Firstly, one of these things just doesn't belong here with Bill Murray. I can see how Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins and the Godfather wouldn't be so culturally relevant to today's young people. I doubt very much that kids today grow up on Playschool and Sesame Street like I did. I don't really get why you're so surprised. Peyton Place meant nothing to me when I was a kid, but I remember my parents talking about it a lot. I'm not saying you're wrong about your overall point re: television vs. the internet, but it's not often someone sings the virtues of television so loudly. And from a literature professor no less.

No name? He wrote the #9 and #11 box office hits of 1983. It earned him enough of a name that Universal gave him $6M+ to make, while it doesn't seem like much was about the same Footloose got made for and more than Police Academy... and likely more than Purple Rain got made for. Hughes wrote The Breakfast Club in '82 when he was fed up with being a writer and wanted to direct, but A&M weren't sold on the idea and the budget was so low that Hughes got nervous and tried writing something more commercial in Sixteen Candles, which sold to Channel Productions and was picked up by Universal. After that, he was able to shoot TBC, but he took a huge pay cut on it and made nothing from it. Being a writer isn't worth as much as being a director in Hollywood; that's why Hughes wanted to switch to directing because he'd been fired off Mr. Mom and National Lampoon's Vacation. He'd never directed a film when A&M agreed to finance TBC, but even after Sixteen Candles he didn't have a name. Not one that the public would recognise. As for the Brat Pack, I think they really rose to prominence with TBC and St. Elmo's Fire. The other thing about TBC is that it had a short theatrical run. I don't think it's much of a surprise that more people went to see Back to the Future or Rambo, that's a given, but considering where TBC came from, the fact that it was allegedly an extremely poor pitch and this was strong opposition among the studio execs, the overall pulling power should be measured a little differently from Michael J. Fox or Sly Stallone. It's a second tier level of stardom. If Hogan isn't analogous to Fox or Stallone then it's a little hard to compare him to what the Brat Pack were able to achieve with a low budget, almost indie level, planned directorial debut. But really the Brat Pack faded so fast I don't think they had the same level of stardom as Hogan.

Why do you expect a bunch of kids to know your outdated pop culture references, Parv? People I work with ten years younger than me don't understand half the shit I rabbit on about. The Breakfast Club was made for a million bucks on a single shoot location with a no-name director and group of actors who gained notoriety during '85. To gross that much on an R rated film is a big deal.

This we should most definitely do. Who can forget that Canadian crooner Henry Burr or the irresistible Alice Joyce? Bigger star? Hogan or Steve Guttenberg? Hogan or Al Bundy? Hogan or Kathleen Turner? The funny thing about Hogan is that outside of North America he was more famous than Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Joe Montana or Wayne Gretzky.

You can read about the television situation in Steve Sims' Konnan HOF bio: http://wrestlingobserverhof.wordpress.com/konnan/ But basically television was not a factor until EMLL's 1989 deal with Televisa.

I don't know about the NFL, but there are plenty of sports fans who don't like the way the modern game is played compared to the sport they grew up on. And plenty of older fans who have dinky memories about the way their sport used to be played. Complaining about wrestling is nothing new. When I watch Crockett, I'm enamoured with the excellent wrestling, but the Observer was full of criticism at the time. The same is true of WCW. My favourite period for that promotion was the early 90s when they were in the doldrums, but I don't care, because when I look back on WCW I pick out the good stuff and don't particularly care about whether the promotion was a success. At some point in the future, people may do the same with the current WWE product, cherry picking the good stuff that Cena, Punk or Bryan produced without caring about the ongoing criticisms of the booking. Wrestling is more of a creative pursuit than sports. Creativity dries up and folks burn out. A lot of people give up on television shows after a few seasons. I gave up on the comics I was obsessed with as a child. Folks stop listening to their favourite bands or the musical genre they were into. Throughout wrestling history, we've seen that promotions can only be super successful for short periods at a time. Compared to most other forms of entertainment, it's a wonder that wrestling is still chugging along. It should have disappeared at the end of the 80s. But it hasn't, instead it's passed a lot of us by. You'd have to be the hardest of the hardcore to watch the same promotion continuously for twenty or thirty years without dropping out at some point. Only men like Johnny Sorrow are capable of such feats.

Pirata Morgan, Babe Face y Cien Caras vs. La Fiera, Lizmark y Rayo De Jalisco Jr. (1986) Babe Face, Cien Caras y Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Lizmark, Rayo De Jalisco y La Fiera (1986) These were a pair of excellent lead-in matches to the Babe Face vs. Fiera match. Not quite up there with Satanico/Dandy, Dandy/Casas or Santo/Felino in my own mini-pantheon of these type of matches, but quality nonetheless. Babe Face was a UWA guy working the talent exchange program at Arena Mexico, and as with other feuds from the 80s, good things came from talent sharing. The theme to this feud was how many times Babe Face could withstand Fiera's spinning high kick vs. whether Fiera could survive the blood loss, his bad shoulder and just being fucked up in general. What made the lead-in matches so good was that the others complemented them well. The second match in particular is one of the better trios on the set, largely because they achieve what I always bang on about in having a secondary thread to go along with the main issue in Fiera vs. Babe Face. In this case, it's Rayo getting the absolute shit beaten out of him by the Northern ranchers. There's these huge tuffs of hair sticking out of his mask and blood splattered all over his chest; at one point he staggers about ringside like the sole survivor of a car wreck. It's a tasty appetiser for the main course, but both times that Fiera is about to really get his hands on Babe, the devious ltitle squirt worms his way to victory, denying hard working folks the payoff to their working week. I found their hair match a tad underwhelming in isolation (you can read the review on this blog if you're so inclined), but with my appetite whet I was interested in reviewing what some are calling a top 10 match for the decade. La Fiera vs. Babe face (8/15/86) This was more fun than great. I don't think Fiera wanted to hurt Babe Face enough in the beginning. If they wanted to go the route of having Fiera dominate the opening fall and a half, he should have whipped Babe Face from pillar to post and made him bleed sooner. The match doesn't get good until Babe Face holds on to his winning submission for longer than he should and then stands there wiping the blood from out of his eyes. After that, it's the standard you expect from a hair match with some intense brawling from Babe and tremendous selling by Fiera, but that intensity should have been present from the start. Both guys were excellent in the final caida, however, with Babe trying to exploit Fiera's shoulder injury and Fiera trying to score that one big knockout move and almost knocking himself out several times in the process. If you chart where the match ends up from where it begins it's a fairly satisfying arc, so even if it's not a perfectly structured match it at least goes somewhere. Of course, controversy is never far behind when Babe's around and his low blow gets the crowd going. The finish s one of those ethical situations that you could argue about into the night. Personally, I'm not in favour of the technico cheating, but I can see the justice in it. The match was only half a classic and not one of the best matches of the decade in my opinion. There was a whole bunch of stuff I would have liked to have rearranged and ultimately Babe was too limited a worker to really deliver a classic. Fiera gave an excellent performance, but didn't lead from the front enough. It was a fun match though, and I've got to say that Mexico had some awfully competent barbers in the 80s. Nice job shearing those locks.

Pirata Morgan, Babe Face y Cien Caras vs. La Fiera, Lizmark y Rayo De Jalisco Jr. (1986) Babe Face, Cien Caras y Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Lizmark, Rayo De Jalisco y La Fiera (1986) These were a pair of excellent lead-in matches to the Babe Face vs. Fiera match. Not quite up there with Satanico/Dandy, Dandy/Casas or Santo/Felino in my own mini-pantheon of these type of matches, but quality nonetheless. Babe Face was a UWA guy working the talent exchange program at Arena Mexico, and as with other feuds from the 80s, good things came from talent sharing. The theme to this feud was how many times Babe Face could withstand Fiera's spinning high kick vs. whether Fiera could survive the blood loss, his bad shoulder and just being fucked up in general. What made the lead-in matches so good was that the others complemented them well. The second match in particular is one of the better trios on the set, largely because they achieve what I always bang on about in having a secondary thread to go along with the main issue in Fiera vs. Babe Face. In this case, it's Rayo getting the absolute shit beaten out of him by the Northern ranchers. There's these huge tuffs of hair sticking out of his mask and blood splattered all over his chest; at one point he staggers about ringside like the sole survivor of a car wreck. It's a tasty appetiser for the main course, but both times that Fiera is about to really get his hands on Babe, the devious ltitle squirt worms his way to victory, denying hard working folks the payoff to their working week. I found their hair match a tad underwhelming in isolation (you can read the review on this blog if you're so inclined), but with my appetite whet I was interested in reviewing what some are calling a top 10 match for the decade. La Fiera vs. Babe face (8/15/86) This was more fun than great. I don't think Fiera wanted to hurt Babe Face enough in the beginning. If they wanted to go the route of having Fiera dominate the opening fall and a half, he should have whipped Babe Face from pillar to post and made him bleed sooner. The match doesn't get good until Babe Face holds on to his winning submission for longer than he should and then stands there wiping the blood from out of his eyes. After that, it's the standard you expect from a hair match with some intense brawling from Babe and tremendous selling by Fiera, but that intensity should have been present from the start. Both guys were excellent in the final caida, however, with Babe trying to exploit Fiera's shoulder injury and Fiera trying to score that one big knockout move and almost knocking himself out several times in the process. If you chart where the match ends up from where it begins it's a fairly satisfying arc, so even if it's not a perfectly structured match it at least goes somewhere. Of course, controversy is never far behind when Babe's around and his low blow gets the crowd going. The finish s one of those ethical situations that you could argue about into the night. Personally, I'm not in favour of the technico cheating, but I can see the justice in it. The match was only half a classic and not one of the best matches of the decade in my opinion. There was a whole bunch of stuff I would have liked to have rearranged and ultimately Babe was too limited a worker to really deliver a classic. Fiera gave an excellent performance, but didn't lead from the front enough. It was a fun match though, and I've got to say that Mexico had some awfully competent barbers in the 80s. Nice job shearing those locks.

I've only seen a handful of his matches. Not even to judge really. I'd like to put out some 70s sets.

All right, it's off to Germany and Austria we go. Otto Wanz vs. Indio Guajaro (Recklinghausen 3/83) This followed a pretty simple formula: some comedy to begin with, then Indio bent the rules and Wanz got pissed and beat the shit out of him. It's probably demeaning to Wanz, but if Big Daddy had matches like these he'd be a sure fire Hall of Famer. Achim Chall vs. Caswell Martin (Hannover 1980) I don't know the song Cas Martin came out to, but it sure was funky. Martin's stuff looked typically good, but I'm not sure he had the necessary drive to have great matches. Franz van Buyten vs. Colonel Brody (Hamburg 9/20/87) The last time we saw Brody he was working his 70s exotico gimmick. Somewhere along the way he traded it in for a South African military gimmick (as you do.) Ed Wiskoski would go on to pinch the gimmick and take it to another extreme, but Brody was still a nasty piece of work. He didn't do much in the way of holds, but they all looked like he was torturing a cadet during military training. van Buyten naturally was the right guy to sell that and so this was better than it had a right to be. Otto Wanz vs. Bull Power (Graz 6/30/90) This was tremendous. Arguably the best of the Vader/Wanz series, though admittedly it's the freshest in my mind. The anthems are played on a bugle while the crowd wave sparklers and sing along in full football voice. CWA sure took this pageantry seriously. The match starts off like any Bull Power/Wanz match with Vader beating the shit out of Wanz until the big comeback. In this case, Vader went for a splash in the corner and reeled backwards in agony. From there on out, he sold a knee injury about as well as you can without it being a legit injury. Wanz took full advantage, but his victory here had more to do with his staying power and ability to withstand the beating Vader unleashed. I don't now how many times the ring announcer told Vader to get out of the corner, but it was amusing.

That's a very good question. Judging him only on his European work, he was an excellent worker when he first debut as Dave Finlay. As he began morphing into "Fit Finlay" he was still capable of excellent performances, but after a while he became more interested in drawing heat and I'm not a fan of the Princess Paula years. Once they split up, I didn't really dig his wandering journeyman act either until he washed up in WCW. So overall, I'd call him a strong hand.

I remember he showed up on Smackdown in 2006 in a Diva Search segment, always found that random but great. Yeah, I randomly came across a Luke Perry Grantland thing where he talks to Simmons about wrestling and the first time he saw Kevin Sullivan.

Stock picks Stock going up -- Ken Joyce, Pete Roberts, Caswell Martin, Bert Royal, Roy St. Clair, Tom Tyrone, Ray Steele, Bob Kirkwood Ken Joyce is the British maestro. He's like Blue Panther, Black Terry and Negro Navarro rolled into one. Roberts had no personality but too many good matches to ignore. Martin had great technique but no standout match. Royal I originally pinned as the Dory Funk to his brother's Terry, but on further watch he was a solid watch. St. Clair was another with no personality but rock solid. Tyrone got big points for his rivalry with Roach, and Steele had too many good matches against the Roach/Rudge/Singh workrate crew to ignore. Kirkwood wasn't a flashy worker, but he could do just about every role that was asked of him from putting other a green kid like Carlo to playing straight man and even comedian. Better than average. Stock going down -- Chic Cullen, Clay Thomson, Ivan Penzekoff, Johnny Kwango Haven't found any more good Cullen matches despite combing for them. Thomson was disappointing in his comeback, and Penzekoff had issues with his gimmick and basically his role on the cards. Kwango mailed in a lot of his performances before hanging it up. New to the list -- Dave Bond, Black Jack Mulligan, Prince Kumali, Tony Costas, Billy Torontos Bond was an oversight the first time. Never a great worker, but I love his late 70s heel run especially his feud against Tony St. Clair. Black Jack Mulligan was a solid pro. Kumali was a thick set heavyweight with some hard hitting strikes. Costas was a fun worker who I wish we had more of, and Torontos' comedy is amusing in small doses.

Ranking the European workers v. 2 (Oct 2013) All-Time Greats Jim Breaks, Mick McManus, Alan Sarjeant, Jon Cortez, Marty Jones, Steve Grey Great Workers Terry Rudge, Tibor Szacaks, Mike Marino, Ken Joyce Excellent Workers Bobby Barnes, Robby Baron, Franz van Buyten, Clive Myers, Steve Veidor, Sid Cooper, Alan Kilby, Pat Roach, Pete Roberts, Caswell Martin Strong Hands Johnny Czeslaw, John Elijah, Tiger Dalibar Singh, Keith Haward, Tom Tyrone, Brian Maxine, Steve Logan (Snr), Les Kellett, Romany Riley, Alan Wood, Axl Dieter, Bobby Ryan, Dave Finlay Decent Hands Tony St. Clair, Jim Moser, Chic Cullen, Peter La Paque, Colin Joynson, Ray Robinson, Johnny Kincaid, Vic Faulkner, Tony Costas, Bert Royal, Roy St. Clair, John Kowalski, Johnny South, Ringo Rigby, Rocky Moran, Jeff Kaye, Johnny Kidd, Young David, Otto Wanz, John Quinn, Tony Walsh, Rene Lasartesse, Dynamite Kid, Steve Regal, Clay Thomson, Johnny Kwango, Black Jack Mulligan, Ray Steele, Bob Kirkwood, Prince Kumali, Dave Bond Average Kung Fu, Alan Dennison, Tony Charles, Mick McMichael, Count Baretlli, Lee Bronson, Tarzan Johnny Wilson, Honey Boy Zimba, Kendo Nagasaki, Skull Murphy, Johnny England, Mike Jordan, Tally Ho Kaye, Kid Chocolate, Lenny Hurst, Dave Taylor, Ivan Penzekoff, Billy Torontos Overrated Johnny Saint, Marc Rocco, Steve Wright, Zolton Boscik, Eddie Capelli, Wayne Bridges Annoying as Fuck John Naylor, Mal Sanders, Danny Collins, Chris Adams

For what it's worth, once you get to Talisman/Rocca you will see what I'd consider to be a basic, standard title match.

It depends whether you like matwork, dives and pure lucha libre wrestling. I think Satanico/Cochisse is a brilliant match with a compelling narrative, but it's not the norm for lucha libre title matches. It's one of the all-time great lucha libre title matches, which makes it an exceptional match not an atypical one. The same is true for the first Rocca/Cota match. No matter how awesome it is, it's not the norm for title match wrestling because Cota cheats. 99% of the time wrestlers will not cheat in lucha libre title matches, but Cota does because he's nuts. I don't think you can go into lucha title matches looking for character. You can't say "okay this guy's the rudo and this guy's the technico and this guy's doing this because of this character trait and this guy's doing this because of such and such a characteristic." Title matches are more about the work. The narrative is how they arrange the events in the match to achieve a dramatic effect, so that by the time they get to the third fall and they're trading nearfalls backwards and forwards the crowd are into it. The work, and a lot of times the rhythm in my opinion, are paramount to the greatness of the match. You don't learn anything new about Blue Panther by watching him have a great title match. You just get the pleasure of seeing Blue Panther work a great title match. Great character workers like Satanico. Cota and Black Terry may produce far more dramatic title matches because of their selling ability, but they're producing deviations on the form. You can't really approach a title match and say okay the rudo is trying to wrestle cleanly here because he really wants to win. He's wrestling cleanly because it's a sanctioned contest. There are literally rudos who can't work this style who aren't put in these matches because they don't have the sufficient technical skills.