ohtani's jacket

What was that thread that Kevin Cook started on Smarkschoice? 75 reasons why Sid rules the world or something like that. Thread needs resurrecting.

You're a year out on the date. This is from '88.

Tully Blanchard vs. Gene Ligon, World Championship Wrestling 1985 Only a squash match, but more evidence that Tully was one of the great television studio workers. Schiavone made the mistake of calling Tully "capable" in an earlier interview and Tully shows Tony just how capable he is by busting out a variety of holds on Gene Ligon. Tully's matches usually feature a lot of bumping and selling and heel shortcuts, so it was fun to watch him work the mat, though I wouldn't rate him as one of the greats in that category.

Harley Race vs. Mil Mascaras, AJPW 9/11/80 This was a styles clash to say the least, but they could have at least thought to make it interesting. The outside brawling, chair waving and table spot was the least inspired stuff I've seen this side of Gene Kiniski's reffing. Neither guy looked like they gave a fuck. Another swing and a miss for Harley in Japan.

Belgian wrestling from 1984. Franz van Buyten vs. Frank Merckx (Pirate Fight, 1984) Who would have thought that Europe would have the best chain matches? I would've thought Mexico, Puerto Rico or one of the Southern territories, but nowhere have I seen such a singular focus on the chain as weapon as in these pirate fights. I love how they'll do regular holds and have the chain pulling across the forehead, in the eyes, even in the other guy's mouth. This wasn't as epic as the Taylor/van Buyten match, but it was still pretty fucking good. The match was clipped, but there was enough shown that it felt whole. Frank Merckx was an ugly looking bugger. He had the kind of face that was made for pro-wrestling, similar to Sid Cooper in the UK. Van Buyten was hardly Rudolph Valentino, but the crowd loved him and he was a great babyface with fantastic selling. He's been a revelation the past few days. I feel pretty confident in stating he was one of the best workers in Europe during the 1980s. Franz van Buyten vs. Le Grand Vladimir (1984) Le Grand Vladimir was a slow guy who couldn't move very well, but he had these hands like a surgeon that seemed to have a vice like gripe whenever he hooked van Buyten. His holds were not only clinical, they looked as if they were excruciatingly painful to break, and van Buyten was a guy who sold excruciatingly painful well. This was also clipped, but enough was shown that you could get the gist of it. van Buyten's forearm smash comeback was so awesome as he clutched his wrist afterwards to put over the impact. Le Grand Vladimir's selling was fun as well, as his gimmick seemed to be the French based Hungarian version of Erich von Stroheim's character in La Grande Illusion and he bumped accordingly. van Buyten ended up disliking the beating he was taking from Vladimir and got DQ'ed by a dodgy ref, which lead to a bunch of protesting at ringside by the Belgian fans and a cool post-match interview where van Buyten made some point about Vladimir having busted open his eye, while young Belgian teenagers loitered around him asking questions in French. One of them looked like a young Francois Truffaut and seemed to be asking van Buyten some sort of philosopical question as the tape run out.

That was pretty amazing, especially the interview transcript. Somebody needs to get you on a podcast about Puerto Rican wrestling, ASAP. Thanks a bunch.

Well, we all know how that works. It's rare to find a top star in any country who was an all-time great worker.

German wrestling: Franz van Buyten vs. Rene Lasartesse (9/27/87) Now here's a match which totally grabbed my attention. Lasartesse was this older than dirt Swiss wrestler, who was evidently one of the most hated wrestlers in Germany in the Berlin and Hamburg tournaments, while van Buyten was a Belgian wrestler of considerable skill. Most of the Belgians I've seen so far have been pretty awesome, it's like an undiscovered hot bed of wrestling greatness. This was worked differently from a lot of Euro stuff in the sense that Lasartesse basically worked van Buyten over in an almost American style until the awesome final round which was worked like a tiebreaker in tennis with knockdowns counting as points. Loved that stip. It made for some awesome visuals and was chocker full of the kind of touches we love in matches, such as jabs to the throat and Lasartesse selling inner ear damage from van Buyten's forearm smashes. Crowd was into it, including a big woman who looked like she might give Lasartesse a run for his money. The finish was really cool and a great pro-wrestling visual as van Buyten needed one more point to win and Lasartesse struggled with his equilibrium from all the blows to his ear. I'm stoked that there appears to be a series between these two. Indio Guajaro vs. Bernie Wright (late 80s) Indio Guajaro was a Columbian wrestler who did a witch doctor gimmick similar to Masambula in the UK. He had quite the afro and carried himself in the ring like Mocho Cota but without the mat skills. This was very similar to the van Buyten/Lasartesse match only Bernie Wright wasn't as good at selling as van Buyten and his babyface comebacks lacked the spark of the Belgian's. Guajaro was charismatic and worth seeing once in your life, but this didn't blow me away. Franz van Buyten vs. Dave Taylor (Pirate Fight, Hamburg 10/5/86) This on the other hand was incredible. A Pirate Fight is basically a chain match with a flag on a pole and not only was this easily the best Dave Taylor match I've seen, it was probably the best chain/strap/bullrope gimmick match ever. In part, the Black Terry Jr-esque camera work is a bit part of why the match is so great, but they also use the chain in more inventive ways than I can remember seeing from any two workers. It's quite a lengthy match, which could have been it's downfall, but it never fails to be engrossing and for a match of this sort without any blood the selling really makes it compelling. The tugging on the chain to stop each other from claiming the flag is epic and it's just another great van Buyten gimmick match. It actually has a chance at being No.1 on my Euro ballot when we get to that stage, I found it so captivating.

Who rates Inoki?

Tully Blanchard vs. Dory Funk, Jr., SCW Tully seems to the face here with Funk playing the heel. Apparently, Funk's idea of playing heel is gently, I mean mercilessly, throwing them into the ring post. Christ, were there ever two brothers who were less alike? You are a plodder, Dory Funk, Jr. Tully Blanchard/Gino Hernandez vs. Terry Funk/Ivan Putski, SCW This was just some bullshit excuse for Ricky Morton and Ken Lucas to start a big fight with Blanchard and Hernandez. I hate matches like these. Funk didn't deliver anything special with Blanchard, but he was just window dressing here.

I'm not sure that post-86 is the right time frame. It seems like '88 is the year he started doing the same schtick in every match.

Harley Race vs. Randy Savage, WWF 9/18/87 This was a lot more fun than I remembered. The match layout is almost embarrassingly simply for workers of their standard, but it allowed them to focus on some pretty solid looking offence for this era of the WWF. It never ceases to amaze me the bumps Harley was prepared to take during this run, especially the shit he was doing over the top rope or off the apron. Looks may be deceiving when it comes to Race at this stage and his King gimmick, but he really was one of the better workers in the WWF at the time and didn't seem to compromise his move set like so many others did. Despite his age, he was treated pretty well by road agents and the like. He could have easily come across as a joke, but for the most part he was still Harley Race, peppering opponents with elbows and strikes, stiffing them on clotheslines and making folks work hard when they got in the ring with the king of professional wrestling. They did about as much as they could without acknowledging his history as a multiple times World Heavyweight champion, though Gorilla would occasionally mention that he'd done everything there was to do in the business, which was about as close to an acknowledge of past history as you got back then. They even treated him pretty respectfully when booking him to job. No elbow from the top from Savage here, as he misses and is forced to dig a little deeper into his bag of tricks. I don't know what Harley has to say about his time in the WWF, but considering the fun Vince had with Rhodes and Taylor there doesn't seem to have been any monkey business on Vince's part when it came to Race.

That Harley/Koko match sure ain't worth picking at scabs.

Tully Blanchard vs. Dusty Rhodes, NWA 6/6/87 As a match this wasn't much chop, but with Dillon and Dark Journey at ringside along with Magnum TA guarding the one hundred thousand and Tommy Young getting involved you knew this would have enough bullshit to fill in a half an hour of TV time. I suppose Tully bumped, sold and stooged well, but it didn't strike me as one of his more memorable performances and Dusty was pretty lame compared to those Harley Race clips I watched recently. I don't think they really milked the bullshit for what it was worth, either, although I've always thought of Dillon as a pretty weak performer when it comes to managers. The finish was meant to be a debacle and it was, but there's fun debacles and then there's crap that makes you wish you hadn't sat through a match and this was in the latter category for me.

Harley Race vs. Ricky Steamboat, AJPW 12/7/82 I really liked this. 1982 is like the peak of Harley Race as a worker as far as I can make out. Steamboat was all about the headlock to begin with, which wasn't thrilling at first, but they reached this point where instead of dropping the headlock like they'd usually do to go onto more exciting spots, they fought over it like buggery. At one point it seemed like Harley was going to snap Steamboat's neck off, but Steamboat wouldn't release the hold and I had to applaud them for going all the way with the headlock. Once they dropped it, the work had some pretty smooth holds and rope work. Steamboat/Race was a match-up that never totally worked for me, but this was fun stuff.

Watched this while listening to the AWA podcast and a jazz album, but I thought it was perfectly fine. I don't think people are coming at these Joshi matches from the right perspective on the early yearbooks. This was a transitional period they were going through and none of the workers were on Bull's level. The fact they got some good-to-great matches out of this Bull/Aja feud should be seen as a plus rather than watching and waiting for something the workers weren't capable of. Kyoko being erratic in this match may be annoying, but it works in the sense that she's kohai to a much stronger senpai and being so young makes it understandable. I really didn't care that her timing was out on a lot of her leaping spots anymore than I cared that the weapon shots weren't laid in, because none of those spots really meant jack in the overall scheme of what they were doing. Besides, the hair cutting and the chain section were violent enough if that's what you want to see. I really liked Bull's selling of the no-selling of Aja's trash can shots. That was great stuff. If I had one criticism of the match it would be that instead of changing the pace and mixing things up once the match got rolling it had no brakes. This is pretty common in Joshi puroresu, but it would be nice to see them take things down then pick up the pace a bit. Bull working over Bison had a lot of potential, but there was never a point in this match where they stopped and isolated any one exchange. To their credit, they were able to keep the match moving despite the fact they worked the same rhythm throughout, but I think it would've helped to have worked the match in a more typical fashion. Joshi pro often fought to distinguish itself as something separate from other forms of wrestling, however, so I won't begrudge them their decision to be an all-out, offense-based style.

The moral of the story is don't watch Bret Hart or Ric Flair matches from 1999.

Antonio inoki vs the lions.

soup, Steamboat does have the Clash return from 11/91 and some Dec TV matches that year.

Jingus, the Big Daddy match is on YouTube. I think it shows that Big Daddy got away with being bad as opposed to being utterly incompetent.

Big Daddy could work. Folks sometimes say that he wasn't that bad a worker in his younger days and mine eyes have seen the proof with the Elijah match.

This was an excellent match, one of the best from this era of the WWF as far as I'm concerned, but that finish sucked. What made it worse was that they re-used it in both of their '91 matches at Copps Coliseum on 1/25 and Orlando on 2/18. Both those matches are good, but they're the same match with a couple of extra spots thrown in. The Orlando match is shocking good for a Coliseum Video match, tho.

Tully Blanchard vs. Tim Horner (1/3/87) Funny little TV match. Tully comes across like one of the masters of television studio wrestling. Tim Horner was always a bit of a white bread worker, but he had some exciting moves. I dug the way he blocked Tully's knee drop in this match. This was nothing grand, but they executed it in a way you didn't see in WWF matches at the time because of the dinky little TV studio. The usage of space in wrestling matches often fascinates me and there never seems to be enough space in these studio matches. It's almost as though the workers are confined to the canvas and not able to easily escape as in an arena match. There's an immediacy to see it that's different from other forms of wrestling, plus the matches are usually on the short side which adds an urgency to the work. Wrestling can look pretty awful when done badly in this setting, but like I said, Tully strikes me as one of the best at studio wrestling.

Wrestling's been dropped from the Olympics, there goes half Japan's gold medals... and they're fucking bidding for 2020. Bollocks to that.

They're all from the same YT channel. I think they're from a Regal comp.