ohtani's jacket

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.

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. 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.

Title match wrestling is the real art to lucha libre. Brawling is easier, which is why less talented guys still have entertaining wager matches. Title matches require a higher level of skill and not many workers are good at them. They're what separate the great workers from the good ones. We'll almost never hear a lucha fan say a guy got carried in a classic title match because in title matches both guys have to contribute, whereas with the wager match formula it's easy for a top guy to carry someone through a brawl.

Tally Ho Kaye vs. John Naylor (10/11/78) This had some amusing antics from Kaye, but I think his schtick works better when he's in against someone I like. I've softened on Naylor a bit. He doesn't draw quite the same visceral hatred from me that he did in my earlier viewing, but this was always going to be a stretch for me to enjoy. Sharky Ward vs. Jeff Kaye (10/8/80) Look, it's a fat, journeyman Australian. You don't see too many of them. Ward was brought over to face Bridges, I think, and Kaye was chicken fodder along the way. Tally Ho Kaye vs. Johnny England (7/5/77) This was Johnny England's television debut and as with most debuts he hadn't turned heel yet. Instead, Walton was trying to put him over as a body builder. Kaye wrestled this straight, which was kind of dull as Kaye wasn't much of a wrestler. Not one of the better matches from the debut genre. Johnny Kwango vs. Dave Freeman (10/8/75) Another television debut, this time from a guy who never really went anywhere. Another dullish Kwango match. Man, Kwango could be entertaining but he could also mail it in. Maybe it's the dregs getting to me. Tino Salvadore vs. Tug Wilson (1/2/73) Now here's a perfect example of the sort of WoS booking which confuses me. This was the final match of a special tournament to celebrate England joining the EEC. I've written about the earlier matches before but basically they pitted Great Britain against France, Belgium and Italy. For whatever reason, diplomacy or what have you, Europe swept this tournament, but the odd thing about it was that in this third bout, which was really a dead rubber to see if Britain could save face, instead of having a popular British wrestler go over they put one of the European guys up against a heel. There was no way a heel was going over in this situation. Obviously, it wasn't meant to be this big patriotic thing, but they just didn't care about maximising the dramatic potential of this show. It's like the antithesis of the Portland TV show. Anyway, Tug Wilson was a heel by this point. He may be the first guy I've seen play a heel while doing a martial arts schtick. What a refreshing change. He also had quite possibly the coolest looking sideburns in the entire 70s WoS run as well as a cool mustache. Salvadore was better known Stateside as Salvatore Bellomo. Walton pissed me off by doing his "he doesn't speak a word of English" schtick, which doesn't make sense when you're talking about an Italian and apparently Bellomo could speak seven languages. Despite all this, the match as all right. It was fun to see Wilson's heel act and I imagine his tag team with Rocco drew good heat.

The same thing happened in New Zealand only a few years earlier, presumably because it aired on terrestrial TV. Wrestling was everywhere. Trading cards, postcards, weekly posters and a two page spread in the TV guide and local tabloid, clothes, all the toys. I remember I had an Ultimate Warrior hoodie, but wouldn't wear it after the tabloid ran a story claiming that he'd been a call boy. We got shafted on the tours, though. I mean check this out: WWF / Arena Wrestling Alliance @ Auckland, New Zealand - Mt. Smart Supertop - April 8, 1990 Jim Powers defeated Abbudaa Dein Tom Magee defeated Royal Viking The Pitbulls defeated Steve Strong & Mando Yanez Don Muraco defeated Haku Norman Smiley defeated Bob Orton Jr. The Bushwhackers defeated Nikolai Volkoff & Boris Zhukov We got all the Apter mags as well, but strangely there wasn't a lot of NWA. A few of their commercial tapes, but mainly our exposure was through the Apter mags. WCW Worldwide began airing later on in the mid-90s on our version of Sky. Oddly enough, I have vague memories of renting a Mid South VHS tape when I was a kid and not appreciating it.

I still find the timing of the UK boom a little odd. In New Zealand, the WWF took off from '88 with the absolute peak being in '89. It was so popular that they even released a whole bunch of local merchandise like NZ exclusive trading cards. By '91 it had been taken off the air.

You're missing Flair/Pillman, Pillman/Rude, the Pillman/Windham feud, Arn/Regal, the Regal/Larry Z feud and the Vader/Arn vs. Stars & Stripes tag.

Is it just me or does Sandy Barr kind of suck? In the span of two matches I saw him get punched by Lonnie Mayne and pop back up like nothing had happened and glance at then ignore Wiskowski attacking Piper in a lumberjack match.

Every time people Joshi on a podcast it sounds like they're saying the Japanese word for boss.

I'm sure this has been done before, but if the territories still existed which workers from the current WWE roster (and TNA for that matter, I suppose) would work in which territories? Who'd be the aces in 2013? The touring champ? The heels run out of town in loser leaves town matches?

Don't hate him, but wouldn't seek out his matches. His ring stance and body movement were awkward for mine, but he had some exciting matches where his popularity added to the atmosphere. Had the chance to meet him, but didn't want to spend a month's wages on boozing.

Man, I watch a lot of films that I enjoy for the direction and cinematography more than the story. Maybe they wouldn't rank high on a list of my favourite movies, but if we were separating "best" from "favourite" they would, even if they didn't particularly move me. I used to care a lot about wrestling when I was in high school. I was gutted when Montreal happened and feared for the future of the WWF. I was staunchly pro-WWF when I first came online; turned my back on Bret, who had been my hero to that point; got emotional when Foley won the title, even though he wasn't a guy I'd grown up on; and had a whole bunch of other reactions based on a rather parochial fandom. I cared a lot about Japanese wrestling and workrate when I was younger too. But as people change, and their tastes mature and develop, I agree that watching wrestling becomes more often than not a cerebral exercise. I often get excited about a match such as Breaks/Ryan or the Virus/Maya match I saw recently, and I certainly cared about those matches but more in the sense that they were matches that got me pumped. These days I tend to care more about whether a match was boring or interesting than emotional and tend to draw a pretty firm line between the two. I don't think wrestling compares to the aching disappointment of sports and I don't think I'll ever really care about a worker the way I cared about a guy like Bret Hart. In the past few weeks I've watched stuff like Rose/Adonis, Rose/Martel and Bockwinkel/Hennig, all of which I thought were pretty good, but watching them I didn't feel anything. My enjoyment as purely cerebral. A waste of time? Maybe, but I wanted to check them off my wrestling "bucket" list so to speak. Maybe if I watched something live on a week-to-week basis I'd have a different reaction.

Jon Casanova vs. Tug Wilson (aired 4/22/72) This is an obscure one. It was the television debut for both these men. Casanova was literally working a Casanova gimmick inspired by the 1971 BBC series, which was written by Dennis Potter of Singing Detective fame. Apparently, the gimmick really took off, especially when he started handing out roses to the women in the audience. Wilson was a barefoot wrestler from Belfast with a bunch of nifty moves, who like Casanova soon became a fixture on bills up and down the country. Then, as soon as they'd arrived, they were gone. Casanova disappeared in late '73 and Wilson a few years later. There's one other Wilson match on tape, but this is the only Casanova match among tape traders. Not a huge tragedy, but both guys worked some of the biggest names and better workers of the era and it seems like we're missing a chunk of what was happening in the very early 70s as we have only a small amount of footage. The match was fairly average, a bit shapeless really, but an interesting time capsule if nothing else. Dynamite Kid vs. Tally Ho Kaye (11/3/76) Vick Faulkner vs. Black Jack Mulligan (11/3/76) Kid/Faulkner/Royal vs. Hogan/Kaye/Mulligan (11/3/76) These were all from the same television taping as the Royal/Hogan match I watched the other day. It was a type of catchweight television tournament. The promoters liked to run these television tournaments that were sort of like Davis Cup ties where you'd have singles matches and sometimes a tag, but strangely they rarely played them for dramatic effect. Often the faces would sweep the heels with nothing in the way of a decider. I've got to give Kaye his due here. He was the star of this episode, firstly carrying a 16 year-old Dynamite Kid to an excellent catchweight tournament bout, then to secondly job to him, and then for his tremendous apron work during the six man tag. I called him a third rate rudo the other day, but this was almost as good as Breaks or Sid Cooper. Dynamite Kid made for an excellent face in peril in both matches. Of all the teenagers I've seen on WoS, he showed the most potential at the youngest age. If any Dynamite Kid fans remain, I'd highly recommend checking out how well he does here. The British Black Jack Mulligan was a generic brawler who cheated a lot, but he wasn't too bad. He had an Alan Moore-like beard that made for some great heat spots where the babyfaces threw him by his whiskers. The six man was better than most WoS tags because they did a legitimate FIP section on Dynamite, but I had to laugh when they announced it was first to three falls instead of best two out of three. They didn't have a clue what to do with tags. All in all, a pretty lightweight taping, but Kaye's star shone bright.

I agree with all this and think it's perfectly natural, but there's something arbitrary about caring about a match. I've tried to watch Buddy Rose because everything that people say about him makes him seem like a guy I would love, but he doesn't excite me the way say Mocho Cota does, and the weird thing about that was when I watched Mocho Cota's stuff five years ago he didn't leave that huge an impression on me. I guess we all read people's comments and can't understand why they don't care about a wrestler as much as us; the original context for this thread was Kevin not being able to get behind Joshi wrestlers, who I think are probably the easiest Japanese wrestlers to get behind because they wear their hearts on their sleeves and you see them grow as workers over their careers, but at the same time I'm tired of pretty much all of them. To me that sums up how fine a line there is between caring and not caring and I'm not sure it's always about the wrestlers and their ability to make you care. A lot of the time it seems to involve extraneous factors. I'd be interested in hearing from anybody who consistently cares about the same sort of stuff.

That makes sense, cheers. More dregs: Ivan Penzekoff vs. Mel Stuart (aired 5/8/76) Penzekoff wore a Soviet Union jacket to the ring complete with hammer and sickle yet he wasn't really a heel. I have no idea what his gimmick was meant to be. He looked like more of a long haired Cossack than a Russian nightmare. I guess it's possible that the communist overtones were played up more in the halls and they didn't want to do anything too controversial on television. Later on, he formed a tag team with Johnny Czeslaw called The Iron Curtain Duo, but they seemed to miss a trick with how they could've pushed this. Anyway, he got to show more of his offence here since Stuart was a jobber, but Walton's stories about him breeding Siamese cats and the time he developed a cauliflower ear between rounds 3 and 4 were more interesting than the match itself. Johnny Kwango vs. Billy Torontos (6/5/78) This had a couple of funny moments like when Torontos tried to headbutt Kwango and almost knocked himself out and then attempted an airplane spin where he was the one who ended up dizzy, but apart from that it was uninspiring no matter how much Walton laughed. Kwango was towards the end of his career here and pretty average. McManus provided "expert analysis" between rounds and was painfully dry. This truly was the dregs. Mick McMichael vs. Tally Ho Kaye (6/30/76) Tally Ho Kaye was a third rate rudo and McMichael has never been a guy who excites me much so this meandered along with the kind of heel cheating and face retaliation that's been done better a thousand times. Zoltan Boscik vs. Steve Kelly (11/7/77) This was surprisingly good. It was one of those matches where an experienced rudo carries a young teenager to something competitive. British wrestling did these matches well. Boscik isn't a favourite of mine, but he was solid here. The 16 year-old Kelly only had a few moves, but Boscik bumped for them well. This achieved its aim. Lee Bronson vs. John Henry Yearsley (4/19/77) This also perfectly good. Bronson was a young heavyweight who was one of the future hopes for British wrestling but didn't get the push he should have. Instead of being the natural successor to Bridges and St. Clair he faded away. Yearsley was a Welsh vet who was good fodder for a rising young star like Bronson and he delivered a nice, professional jobber-to-the-rising star performance. Sheik Adnan Alkaissy vs. Lenny Hurst (10/30/79) Hey, it's General Adnan. He got pretty good heat for this performance. There was a woman at ringside who screamed at him like a mongrel. They did a whole big angle about how the British promoters hadn't determined whether the sleeper hold was legal under Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules, so when poor old perpetual jobber Lenny Hurst was put to sleep the bout was called off and the St. John's ambulance people had to come to the ring. Max Ward ordered the Sheik to revive Hurst and he did that old school schtick where you wake people up from sleeper holds. Noteworthy if nothing else.