ohtani's jacket

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda, 4/24/05 I like a lot of Ishikawa and Ikeda matches, but not this one. Not only is it kind of sickening, it's a poor introduction to shoot style. To me, introducing shoot style without the context of the entire Japanese scene from pro-wrestling to other martial arts is somewhat difficult. I don't think it makes sense outside that context. If I were to choose an introductory match I'd probably chose one of Volk Han's more exciting carry jobs like that '95 match against Yamamoto. For All Japan, I'd choose a Jumbo vs. Misawa six-man as they are the most fun matches in the style. You could probably make the same argument for a New Japan multi-man elimination match. For lucha, I like the minis trios idea. The 5/90 trios works too.

On the first page is a list of recommended matches. Not all of them are on YouTube, but if you want showmanship I recommend Jim Breaks, Mick McManus, Sid Cooper, Tony "Banger" Walsh, Adrian Street and Bobby Barnes. Mark Rocco is another guy you'll want to check out. If you want mat wrestling watch Alan Sarjeant and Jon Cortez. For the "Euro style" definitely check out Grey/Saint or Grey/Myers. For hard hitting action, you want Marty Jones, Tibor Szakacs, Finlay and Terry Rudge. Then there's comedy such as Les Kellett. There's a lot to explore.

Julien Morice vs. Johnny Williams (9/20/69) I'm going to assume this is their match from 1969 as Walton sounded somewhat more polished in his delivery than previously. This is the last bit of 60s footage I have. I've only seen Morice once before in a match that Walton shat on worse than any match I've heard him shit on. Watching this, I can see why. Walton loved the fast, "all action" lightweights and Morice was a more physical lightweight. The match was solid enough, but slow. The final fall was missing, but I wasn't too disappointed as it wasn't that exciting a match. The rest of the 60s footage was good to very good.

Len Wilding vs. Jack Cunningham (10/28/61 TV) Albert Wall vs. Ernie Riley (11/25/61 TV) Very early WoS in terms of the footage we have available. The commentator for these matches was Peter Cockburn with wrestler turned referee Tony Mancelli joining him for the Albert Wall contest. Wilding vs. Cunningham was cool. Cunningham was this spidery, barefooted South African wrestler whose specialty was the monkey climb off the ropes and Wilding was a John Naylor-like, popular "local" boy. This had a bit more of the Euro flair to it than the other matches I've watched so far with lots of joint manipulation and undressing of holds. It seems that style was fully established by 1961 as they didn't appear to be doing anything revolutionary. Albert Wall has quite a legendary status among heavyweight workrate fans. He had a remarkable physique. He quite literally looked like one of those muscle bound types in the "weedy guy gets sand kicked in his face" comic book advertisements. Massive, massive thighs. All work and no personality, but there's a contingent that likes straight wrestling and he was a poster boy for that. He did work quite well for a heavyweight, though I think this was early into his career and not prime Albert Wall by any stretch. His opponent was the son of the legendary Bill Riley and one of Britain's finest light heavyweights of the era. He used his speed and agility to offset Wall's strength and power in a decent catch weight contest.

The next two matches I have a date for: Honey Boy Zimba vs. Docker Don Steadman (10/18/67 TV) Alan Miquet vs. Tony Borg (10/18/67 TV) The first match was a solid, power-based heavyweight contest between a spry Honey Boy Zimba and Docker Don Steadman, King of the Stevedores. A stevedore is a longshoreman for those of you who, like me, have no idea. He was basically a gruff, unkempt looking heavyweight similar in appearance to Sid Cooper or John Elijah when they grew older. Think Skinner if those names don't mean anything. Zimba was much quicker than the 70s worker I'm familiar with and very similar to Johnny Kwango without quite the same charisma. He had this cool spot he'd do where he'd do a nip-up into a flying headbutt aimed at his opponent's torso. It was one of those matches that threatened to get out of hand through roughhousing, but stayed on the straight and narrow. It's a limited sample, but there hasn't been the same heel heat as later WoS. I don't have footage of any of the notable heel personalities, so I'm not sure how often they ran matches where the heel(s) cheated a lot. I haven't seen a public warning yet, mostly it's been straight wrestling. Walton had a bit of a dodgy comment when he mentioned that Zimba's chocolate skin was glistening under the lights. The second match was interesting. It was a fast paced, high offence lightweight match. Really slick for 1967. It was fascinating to watch lightweight wrestling that didn't have that strong a George Kidd influence. Probably the best match from the footage.

A friend sent them to me. I believe they were originally bought from ITV. The second match is the finals of a heavyweight knock-out tournament. Walton mentions the semi-finals having aired the previous Wednesday: Tibor vs. Yuri Borienko and Barratt vs. John Lees.

I was fortunate to get my hands on some 1960s World of Sport footage. So far I've watched the following: Peter Szakacs vs. Len Hurst Tibor Szakacs vs. Ivor "Pat" Barratt I can't really get an accurate date for either match. There's a Hurst vs. Peter Szakacs match listed from 1969, but nothing for Szakacs/Barratt. Barratt was a British heavyweight who took a slightly unconventional route of leaving for the States and returning as an bit of an outsider schooled in the all-in, American style. Apparently, he returned to Britain fairly regularly from '67-69, so we're talking late 60s. For a guy like me who's seen more WoS than most non-Brits, the footage is endlessly fascinating. The presentation is quite different. It's slightly more formal than 70s World of Sport as England in the late 60s was culturally different from the 70s. Most of the men still wear suits and ties to the grappling and it has almost a theatre like quality instead of the town hall vibe you associate with WoS. Walton is nowhere near as polished in his delivery and doesn't quite have his act down pat. Every now and again there are tinges of the Walton we know, but it's not quite the same. The style itself (as far as the Szakacs brothers go) is slightly more athletic as opposed to spotty and there isn't quite the same interplay between submissions and Walton's wordplay as there is in the 70s. There is the same bullshit injury finishes, though, so they were an early intervention from the bookers. Another interesting point was that it was filmed differently with handheld shots from ringside. They also had a television celebrity hand over the knock-out tournament trophy to the winner in the second match which was a type of status wrestling wasn't given in later years. Tibor is one of my favourites and I pretty much consider him the British Volk Han. He didn't do anything spectacularly different from his 70s matches, but his bout with Barratt was a decent heavyweight contest. Szakacs vs. Hurst was okay, but didn't really resolve my curiosity over how good the younger Szakacs really was. Anyway, very interesting so far. There was also a brief part of a match intro shown for a tag match involving The Borgs, a pair of extremely lightweight workers. Amazing the gimmicks that have been lost to time hauled up in the ITV vaults.

When I saw Rockwell on the link, I thought Harley was going to be the alien at Arena 51.

Try the Jim Breaks vs. Young David matches. For mine, they're the quintessential Breaks matches.

Not only individual matches, but hand-picked individual matches most of the time. Don't really consider myself a big watcher.

I don't know if there's really a canon anymore. There was when I first got online but the newer fans today don't seem that interested in historical matches.

Shot reverse shot is done with a single camera. You shoot the dialogue from one side then move the camera to the reverse shot set-up and shoot the other person's dialogue. What you're suggesting would require the wrestlers to do multiple takes where they'd need to produce as close to the same performance as possible for continuity purposes, which would be even more demanding for non-actors. The two shot set-up they commonly use saves time and money and they can put it in the "can" so to speak as soon as they get a usable take. If you started using shot reverse shot it would look too much like a movie or television drama. It would be kind of weird.

I don't know about global warming denial, but having lived through a major nuclear disaster I can tell you I will never take activists at their word ever again. Holy non sequitur, Batman! I was referring to climate change deniers and the implication that climate change denial is somehow wrong.

I don't know about global warming denial, but having lived through a major nuclear disaster I can tell you I will never take activists at their word ever again.

Thought I'd start a thread for one of the most unique workers in the history of professional wrestling, Alan Kilby. Kilby, to my knowledge, is the only deaf wrestler to have ever worked in a major promotion. He was actually deaf-mute, though I believe the deaf community no longer approve of this term. In Kilby's day, they referred to him as "the deaf and dumb star, Alan Kilby." For the most part, his deafness was treated with respect. Walton never failed to mention it and there was a series of explanations he would go through from Kilby lip reading the referee's instructions, to having a corner man who could sign for him, and Kilby not being able to hear the bell and apologising for failing to release a hold. Occasionally, heel opponents would taunt him, but more so because he was a tremendously popular babyface and not because he was deaf. I can't remember too many overt taunts over his hearing, but heels loved to rile him up. In the far flung future, if a DVDVR Europe set is released, I expect Kilby to be popular. He was a fantastic worker (one of the best to debut in the 80s) and an even better babyface. His selling was excellent and he excelled at playing the fired up babyface. Whether it was because of his perceived disability I'm not sure, but he wouldn't take shit from anyone, which often led to some tremendously heated bouts. He was a mid to light-heavyweight, who wrestled the likes of King Ben, Dave Finlay, Chic Cullen and Rocky Moran in his own weight class. I'll add some reviews of those matches in due course.

I was confused because people were making out like Keith wrote it but he'd have no idea who Antifaz del Norte is. I was at one point a pretty major Dandy fan, but I think if I were to look at him critically I'd say that his work prior to '88 is pretty green compared to the Dandy we know from '89-90. That '89-90 period is truly outstanding. After 1990, his output is sporadic. That was partially because of CMLL's booking style, which tended to have cooling off periods, and because of the exodus to AAA which left CMLL pretty thin on quality workers, but mostly it was because of Dandy's physical decline. He had a nice little period around '96-97 where he contributed well to trios, but after 1990 I'd say he has pockets of good work here and there. I'm often critical of Santo, Panther and Casas, but they've been far more consistent. Dandy in recent times is one of the more awful veterans. In '89-90, you could make a case a strong case for Dandy being the best wrestler in the world but there were a number of workers in Mexico who more than rubbed shoulders with Dandy at the time. It was a bumper crop of talent. Dandy got the push at that time for his weight class but there were a lot of guys who were equally good. We're also limited by TV. Who knows what was happening live.

Check out: Sangre Chicana vs. Perro Aguayo, 2/28/86 Espanto Jr. vs. El Hijo Del Santo, 8/31/86 Trio Fantasia v. Thundercats, (Masks vs. Masks), 12/8/91 Pirata Morgan vs. Dandy, El Faraon and Masakre are worth watching. Satanico vs. Pirata Morgan is a thing of beauty. Check out Santo vs. Parka if you like masks turning crimson.

"I bet you wouldn't say that if I offered you a million dollars" could solve a lot of arguments on this site.

Terry Rudge vs. Tiger Dalibar Singh (8/19/87) Highlights tacked onto the end of the show. Match looked like the usual Singh/Rudge bout. Terry Rudge vs. Ray Steele (6/10/87) It's kind of fun dipping into this original broadcast stuff as you're never sure what you'll get. In this case, they aired the entire bout as a preliminary contest before the freak show stuff. Rudge was a beast in Germany in '87 and finally got to show his wares on British TV. I was a little surprised by how good this was as Steele can be a buzz killer at times, but he pit his skills against Rudge for the full six rounds and this was about as good as he could wrestle. Steele was one of the most ordinary looking blokes in the entire run of wrestling on British TV. He looked how most people's grandfather must have looked when they were young -- short back and sides with a part, ears protruding. Funnily enough, for a territory that was built on the strength of some over-the-top television gimmicks, the heavyweights were often distinguishable by the colour of their trunks and little else. I'm not fond of the way Walton put Rudge over late into the TV run. Rudge played a sort of a tweener role and would throw the occasional inside shot, or in this case slap Steele to provoke him, and Walton would put it over in a really tired way, rehashing the same lines he'd used for dozens of tough guy workers over the years. It would've been nice if Walton had put him over with the same vigour as he put over Marino, but I guess that's over-estimating Rudge's station. Nevertheless, Terry carried Steele to a good, solid match with some great, original looking holds and this ended up being quite the gem for Rudge enthusiasts. Terry Rudge vs. Ray Steele (3/4/86) Finish only. Apparently, this was the only time Rudge was on TV in '86. Travesty. Terry Rudge vs. Len Hurst (10/31/85) This was another gem. It would be easy to overlook a match like this as Hurst wasn't an overly outstanding competitor, but this was another opportunity for Rudge to go long. The first few rounds, in particular, were quality rounds with Hurst more than a match for Rudge's guile. The bout petered out a bit as the draw began to loom, but all in all it would slot into the best of Rudge quite easily.

How old is Dave now?

Terry Rudge vs. Suni War Cloud (Hamburg 9/20/87) Suni War Cloud is the least interesting opponent I've seen Rudge face. There's been guys who have had successful Native American gimmicks in Europe, but Suni War Cloud wasn't one of them. Rudge is a great worker, but he couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear on this particular night.

I haven't watched the Dandy/Azteca match in several years, so I'm not sure what he rolls out that is "shoot style" per se. If he just does armbars or what not, any number of luchadores could have picked that up on New Japan tours. Personally, I'm not sure why it would matter if Dandy incorporated shoot style aspects into his matches and it certainly hasn't had a long term influence on lucha libre.

If it's a troll then perhaps we can turn this thread into a Dandy thread. Did he really incorporate shoot style into lucha? Is he really the greatest singles match worker of all-time? Were his mat skills several leagues ahead of anyone else at the time? Was he the best at trios? Did he have durable workrate? Is his post-prime stuff any good? Was Santo turning heel the greatest angle and feud ever? All worthwhile questions.

I'm still confused over who wrote this. Is it a parody or was it sent to Keith by someone? What does "I'm honored that Dave and Bryan were also CC'd on this one" mean?

Bret's El Dandy crack was a great line so I have no problem with it being ironic. I'd also expect this corner of the Internet to have about as much interest or knowledge in Dandy as they do Naoki Sano or anybody else from the yearbooks. Keith is a relic like Angelfire or Tripod. More pertinent were how weak the pimping points were. I don't know who wrote that but it's not exactly balanced.