ohtani's jacket

I'm not sure I buy the Tully comparison. Satanico was probably legit the best worker in Mexico at the time and never got outclassed even when he was showing ass in Infernales matches. The Cochisse match isn't some perfect example of how to work a title match. It was part of a heated feud between the two, which is what gives it its edge.

Didn't know Luke Perry is a wrestling fan.

O'Connor vs. Mighty Inoue is another fun maestro match with a really cool finishing sequence where Inoue takes exception to an O'Connor punch and stiffs him a bit before doing an awesome senton. I could imagine everyone from Tenryu to Dick Togo appreciating that stretch.

Count Bartelli vs. Roger Wells (11/16/76) Count Bartelli vs. Klondyke Jake (10/8/75) Count Bartelli vs. Honey Boy Zimba (7/5/77) Boredom thy name is Bartelli. Walton would always tell the same anecdote about Bartelli that he trained by lifting a donkey. I think I'd rather see him lift a donkey then wrestle. All of the 70s greats were past their prime, but with the majority of them you can still tell that they were tremendous wrestlers. In Bartelli's case, it's hard to tell where the legend sprung from. To his credit he was extremely popular even in the years after his unmasking and seemed like a nice guy when he got on the house mic at the end of the Zimba match, but talk about all hammerlocks and no bumps. In the first two matches he was wresting fatties, but Zimba wasn't exactly a slouch. He needed carrying to produce something exciting, but all Bartelli ever brought to a match was the most basic of strength holds. The Klondyke Jake match was the best of the three since the fatty some spectacle, but this was dull stuff for the most part. Bartelli telling Walton to take a bow was fun. There was a close-up of an embarrassed Walton smoking a cigarette with a cigarette holder. Drinking and smoking while commentating is grand.

Thanks for the heads up. I've got a few more dregs to get through with Britain then I'm off to Germany for a change of pace.

O'Connor vs. Rikidozan looked like a cool bout. Tough day at the office for our boy, but like a good Kiwi lad he didn't take any shit from Rikidozan and his mob connections.

God, I love the Hammer. If you love the Hammer you owe it to yourself to watch this match -- Is there a comprehensive list of injuries the Hammer inflicted? Flair's nose, Piper's ear, Wahoo's leg, Santana's knee. Any more?

The flip side to that is that Japanese workers do too many moves.

I wish wrestlers still wore capes like in that Wilson match. Saw a clip of old man O'Connor challenging Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA title and still looking pretty good, though Bockwinkel gave him too much of the finishing stretch before retaining his championship for mine. Also saw brief clips of O'Connor against Shohei Baba, which looked like a treasure trove if it were in full.

After watching and re-watching the Rose vs. Adonis, Piper and Martel feuds, I enjoyed watching Buddy work against a more limited opponent in the form of Stan Stasiak, though I liked Stasiak's puncher gimmick. The more of this stuff you watch, the more Frank Bonnema grows on you, but the way he'd prattle on about how it could take weaks for some men to recover from the heart punch and how some never did only for Rose to shake it off *every single time* made me want to head down to Sandy Barr's flea market and point it out to the man himself. Every time I watch a Rose match, I always come away thinking I saw more from his opponent than I did from Rose. I can't decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. I know he has some good looking offence, but he seems to work from beneath a lot. That's good in the sense that he puts his opponent over and everybody looks good facing Rose, but I sometimes wish he'd work from the top a bit more. Are there any bouts where he's in control a bit more?

Not a shoot, but Mark Rocco has some humdingers in this interview: I think there's a longer version too, but I only watched this extract.

Mark Rocco vs. Alan Dennison (10/11/78) All action, one fall, knock out tournament match. Rocco was hit and miss as a worker, but this sort of match suited his style to a tee. To Rocco's credit he knew that if he was going to be a success in the business he needed to stand out in some way and he achieved that by having an incomparable workrate. Dennison impressed me with his bumping and by hanging with Rocco in general. For a guy I thought I didn't like he sure has come up trumps lately. Mark Rocco vs. Steve McHoy (2/17/82) This really showed the genius of Rocco. It was supposed to be a world title match against Kung Fu, but for whatever reason Kung Fu chose to leave for Stampede instead and on this big Royal Albert Hall show they replaced him with a guy who'd never been on TV before in heavyweight Steve McHoy. Rocco really excelled at these catchweight contests, but this was asking a lot in terms of making up for the loss of a title match. Nevertheless, Rocco got on the house mic, cut a promo on Kung Fu and proceeded to have a heated, action packed bout in and out of the ring and really get the Albert Hall crowd going. Super stuff this.

Tally Ho Kaye vs. Danny Collins (3/20/85) Collins was one of Joint Promotions' boy wonders and this was another of those vets vs. young boy matches that were so common on television. The trouble is that the vets were already old in the 70s, so by the time the 80s rolled around these matches didn't have quite the same zing. Kaye was also pretty fat at this point. Wasn't a brutal match or anything, but not so interesting. Walton could be overheard at the start saying they couldn't use the ring announcer footage because he fucked up twice in the introductions. Ray Steele vs. Larry Coulton (Black Jack Mulligan) (11/29/71) How strange that we have Black Jack Mulligan's television debut. He was going under his real name here. It's also some of the earliest WoS footage we have and gives a portrait of Ray Steele as a young man (nice haircut.) Starts cleanly, but gets a bit heated and is fairly lively for a television debut. Mulligan showed glimpses of his future traits, but was given the benefit of the doubt as having to work that way to contend with Steele. The finish was Mulligan failing to make the count after three consecutive dropkicks, which may seem like a weak finish but I actually thought it was really cool. Why not score a knock out off stuff like that? Tally Ho Kaye vs. Danny Collins (aired 1/21/84) Collins had made his television debut the previous November where he took a fall off Jimmy Breaks. This was a special no rounds, 20 minute time limit contest and although it was a bit slow at times it was better than their match from '85. Kaye put the kid over even if it was on a DQ. He also got on some granny's wick awfully bad in this one. Alan Kilby vs. Black Jack Mulligan (2/3/82) Tom Tyrone/Alan Kilby vs. Black Jack Mulligan/Bill Bromley (2/3/82) More tournament stuff. Kilby worked really hard as usual and was way too excited when his tag team took out the second contest. It was like he hadn't been let on that it was a work. I've got respect for Mulligan. He was a better grappler than it appeared, but kept in character at all times playing a Northern brusier with a short temper who was easy to out smart. Someone in the crowd dropped the N word before the start of the bout, which was embarrassing. Alan Dennison vs. Black Jack Mulligan (8/3/83) Mulligan had shaved his head at this point and was as close to an asskicking Terry Rudge as he'd ever get. This was easily the best Dennison match I've seen and something I came close to recommending, but I'm not sure it would mean much to people unfamiliar with Dennison. Pretty much a straight contest with very little bullshit. Mulligan gave Dennison a tremendous run for his money and Dennison was a guy who was fairly well protected by Joint. The finish was another one where Mulligan gets knocked out easily, but he took his bump over the ropes like a man and I really like this. Billy Torontos vs. Kurt Heinz (aired 1/17/81) Short comedy match with some neat Torontos spots and a game Heinz. Walton sure loved him some Billy Torontos. The strange thing about this slapstick style of wrestling is that it was so business exposing that Walton had to continuously sell it as though Torontos was an accomplished worker who was doing all this comedy on purpose because he was a comedian. Kind of a warped kayfabe, but British wrestling had some many who played to the galleries that you accept it as a norm. Torontos died not long after this.

Yeah, I have a hard time buying that Steamboat is a better babyface in the Flair series then Santana is in the Valentine series even if the latter are better matches.

There's not a lot of attendance figures for British shows, at least not that I know of. We don't even have solid attendance figures for the big Royal Albert Hall shows. It's fairly obvious who the stars were, but it's unclear how they drew in relation to each other. John Lister or the Wrestling Heritage guys may have a better idea than me.

If you don't think the matwork matters then it's probably a good indication that the match isn't that good. There's only a small amount of really great lucha title matches in my opinion and only a handful from the 80s. Having said that, the matwork means what people want it to mean. For some it might be a battle for machismo, for others it may be purely about technique. Some may look for psychology in it and others might look for it to reveal character. I'd like to think it encompasses all of those things. There are natural laws to lucha title matches like the technicos being technically superior and the rudos relying more on brute strength and then there are exceptions to those laws like Satanico or Mocho Cota being amazingly gifted. Then there's the commission and the requirements for sportsmanship and gentlemanly behaviour, which are sometimes broken by the rudo and his second. On top of that, is the desire for the rudo to prove his worth in what is basically the antithesis of his specialty, the brawl or the wager match. There's usually plenty going on it a title match because they're more often than not connected to a feud or longstanding rivalry.

Pretty much everyone threw decent European uppercuts *in* Europe, but Rudge, Roberts, Steele, Singh, Roach, Kilby and Finlay could have formed a nice forearm smash club.

Thundercats got taken off the air when I was a kid because it was too violent. There's probably fads in every generation, we just remember more vividly the ones we were a part of.

Were there He-Man/Transformers/GI-Joe/TMNT booms in the UK? TMNT in particular killed the interest in wrestling in NZ.

The guy said he wanted to make a comprehensive list of the best matches in WCW history, but even if he wants to make a list of matches that are critical to understanding WCW I don't see how a Stars and Stripes tag is any less worthy than Mils Mascaras vs. Cactus Jack or Lex Luger vs. Mean Mark Callous or Terror Risin’ vs Keith Cole.

The trouble with the UK workers is footage. With guys like McManus and Breaks we have 25 odd matches spread out over two decades, but for some of the biggest names we have less than 10 matches and in some cases only one or two. The guy with the best body of work is Steve Grey, but nobody's ever going to think of Steve Grey as the greatest of all time. The best we can hope for is that he compares favorably to guys like Martel, Hennig and Santana. Personally, I think he's one of the all time great babyfaces, but time will tell if others agree with me. Terry is a tough one as once he got really good (in the early 80s) he spent a lot of time in Germany and other territories and was only on television sporadically. His German stuff is by and large better than his WoS stuff because he got to go longer, but again we're talking about limited handheld footage.

Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 1/1/82.

I went with Tito. His fired up performances in the Savage and Valentine feuds are better than anything the other two did and he has other good stuff like the Bass match. If it was purely about matches then I think he has the weakest output of the three, but as a babyface I enjoyed him more than the other two. Martel was the most reliable and Steamboat was probably the best worker of the three.

Americo Rocca, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. Negro Navarro, El Signo y El Texano (Hair vs. Hair) (9/19/86) This was savaged by the World Pro editor and the replays to stop and describe the moves hindered the flow even further, but the Misioneros looked much better here, as you'd hope and expect from a big hair match. Lots of highlights here (and that's all this was really, highlights within a series of highlights), including Signo being an awesome heat merchant, a fantastic double team submission from Navarro and Texano, two superb pairings in Navarro and Ringo and Texano and Rocca and Signo with the best tope in the west. The finish was awesome as well and foreshadowed all those great one-on-one showdowns in modern Negro Navarro matches. I suddenly remembered why I love Ringo Mendoza when he countered into the submission finish. Hot damn, I wonder if the masters of these matches still exist.

Lizmark, Alfonso Dantes y Tony Salazar vs. El Signo, El Texano y Negro Navarro) (8/15/86) This was a tricky one. If there was more Misioneros footage available from the 80s I could see myself picking out small details and praising the Misioneros for their work, but since there's not this came across as disappointing. Taken on its own it wasn't a bad trios, but it's not the classic you're looking for and it's not even really a precursor to a classic. I thought the Misioneros looked better individually than they did as a trios. It's often said that Texano was the best worker of the three during their heyday and I can see the case for that. Signo wasn't as good as he is in the early 90s incarnation with Black Power and Navarro's role within the team was extremely different from the Navarro we know today, although there was one instance where Navarro was about to put an arm lock on Lizmark where I suddenly had a flash forward to Navarro v. Solar. The opening fall was poor. I kept waiting for the Misioneros to show they had a thousand tricks up their sleeves like the Masakre version of Los Infernales, but instead they did the most generic double and triple teaming imaginable. They may have been innovators of the trios form, but this fell way short of the showcase I was imagining. The second and third falls were better as the workers matched off individually, but it didn't make much sense that after the beating the technicos received in the first fall they were able to go one-on-one as though nothing had happened. Usually, the beating would continue until the technicos made their comeback and then the third fall would see the momentum shift backwards and forwards until there's a winner. The beatdown the Misioneros delivered would ordinarily come in the second fall as retaliation for coming off second best in the opening caida, and so it seemed to me that the Misioneros got the order wrong in what's a pretty standard trios formula. But it was all kind of forgotten by the time it got to the exciting parts. The match had a really awesome post-match punch-up that was almost like a fourth caida. To be honest, it was more exciting than anything that happened in the match. Dr. Alfonso Morales did my favourite trick of his where he tries to interview workers in the middle of their post match brawling and the Misioneros got huge heat their mic work. Lizmark busted out his "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" footwork, Navarro was awesome running around and jumping folks, and Signo looked fantastic with his longer hair and runty little moustache. You could totally imagine him bleeding like a stuck pig. "Low Blow" Tony Salazar's gimmick in the 80s seemed to be getting his team DQ'ed and this was all leading to a hair match, but I kind've wished the whole match had been wrestled with the same friction.