ohtani's jacket

Thought I'd start this off with all the McManus I've watched. Some of these are just short notes: Mick McManus vs. Jackie Turpin (1/9/80) Fun performance from the veteran rudo. Jackie Turpin was a boxer turned wrestler and a decent foil for McManus. The finish was well booked. Seemed like the ref was going to stop the match, but Turpin got an equaliser and McManus was DQ'ed. Good stuff. Johnny Saint vs. Mick McManus (11/20/75) Classy match, especially after the equalising fall. Great performance from McManus, considering he was already 50 here and making overtures about retiring. It was a similar sort of bout to Saint's matches against Breaks in that Johnny was pissed at the heeling and received a number of public and private warnings, which kinda amuses me since Kent always talks about how he's never seen Johnny Saint get a public warning. Even when he's being aggressive, Saint kind of lacks charisma, but McManus is a superb foil and all of Saint's holds rock, especially the forearms against McManus' ears. How's this for some trivia -- this match is from the same venue as Capelli/Sargeant (Gravesend) and sure enough the same pensioner is in her front row seat. But get this -- it's also from the same card as the most famous of the Grey/Myers bouts. The one that got us all hooked on WoS in the first place. That makes it a hell of a card if you ask me. Mick McManus vs. Alan Sarjeant (11/20/74) This was great shit. A slightly better finish and it would've been my favourite McManus match to date. There was some awesome grappling in this, but what I really loved was how McManus was lumpy like Tenryu and Sarjeant had short legs and no torso like Black Terry. Mick McManus vs. Robbie Baron (12/29/76) Hugely entertaining McManus match. If it wasn't for the cop out finish, I would've listed this. Definitely on my personal list of great McManus matches. Mick McManus & Steve Logan vs The Barons - Jeff Kaye & Ian Gilmour (5/3/73) British tag wrestling was primitive compared to the Southern style, but the matches always got good heat, presumably because they only ever ran them as a special attraction. I suppose you could call it the opposite of lucha. Occasionally, they ran six man tags, but whichever format, they were more often than not heel/face affairs that tended to get the crowd worked up. I've yet to see a great British tag match, but by and large the matches are fun. McManus and Logan were a solid rudo team, but I don't know if you can add "tag wrestler" to McManus' HOF resume since there wasn't a whole lot of structure to what they did in these matches.

Jim Breaks vs. Kid Chocolate (9/26/78) Match is joined with a Breaks fall being overturned and a public warning being issued instead. Quite a frenetic bout for the time that it lasts as Johnny Saint is at ringside in a sling and Breaks goes for the kill while taunting Saint the entire time. Kid Chocolate has to play JTTS, but it's a neat bit of TV with the Digbeth crowd getting on Breaks' case with "easy" chants and Saint entering the ring at the end to slap Breaks around with his good arm, which was probably the coolest thing Saint has ever done. This was fun while it lasted.

William Regal vs. Kassius Ohno, NXT 3/21/13 This was a masterful selling performance from Regal and a pretty brutal match. I was actually a little uncomfortable with how violent it was, largely because so much of Ohno's offence was based on running kicks to Regal's head and somehow Regal made his face turn unnaturally purple, but for a studio TV match in a developmental territory you couldn't ask for much more from this. Regal fans will eat it up.

Maybe it's a compliment that Flair is synonymous with something that 90% of all heels do. Personally, my biggest problem with Flair is his offence. I wouldn't exactly call him a weak offensive worker, but it always felt like his offence was missing something to me.

Terry Rudge vs. Pete Roberts (3/21/83) I know there are people who think "Super Destroyer" Pete Roberts is one of the most boring workers to ever grace a ring, but with the right kind of opponent Roberts could have stellar matches. This was an excellent twenty minute draw full of fantastic, hard-hitting action. Since Joint Promotions aired on a real sports programme, they tended to mimic other sports by having more draws than is normal for a wrestling promotion. Along with their injury finishes, they did this to varying degrees of satisfaction, but this was just about the best draw I've seen in terms of the finishing stretch. I often find that most workers' execution of a time limit draw leaves a lot to be desired, but this was the perfect combination of both guys going at it hammer and tongs to get the winning fall and fatigue and the clock playing their part. I got over Walton's commentary a long time ago and sometimes ignore it these days, but he was on point here and did a wonderful job of calling the action, which made an exciting match seem like a cracker. He was particularly good at pointing out that because it was a twenty minute match without falls that the only breaks the workers would get was between falls instead of the usual intervals between rounds, and both guys wrestled so well that the old cliche about neither man deserving to lose never rung truer. Terry Rudge vs. Pat Roach (6/28/84, JIP R5) Awesome match-up, but it was joined at the end of the 5th round with Rudge already up a fall. His attacks on Roach's arm were God-like in their inventiveness and execution, and Roach, who had a good seven inches on Rudge, was like a bear with a sore head dealing with the smaller man, but not enough of this aired to form any real opinion about it.

You are secretly enjoying this, aren't you?

Men At Work had two hit albums.

I've never gotten the sense watching Flair that his opponent was the better wrestler or that Flair didn't have a fighting chance. I also recall Jumbo playing the bitch any time he'd do those whiny facial expressions of his.

Nick Bockwinkel vs. Stan Hansen (4/20/86) I watched this twice to see how it could possibly be described as stiff or a war, and to try to ignore the commentary, but this was so lacklustre and pedestrian that the ref bump and DQ finish were hardly even a letdown. I don't have the AWA set, so I don't know how good this is contextually, but this wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the wild and sprawling, Terry Funk influenced Puerto Rico brawls against Colon and Bockwinkel looked plain old. I thought this was going to be hard hitting like something like Rudge/Tyrone, but the holds were pretty pointless and the mid-match, pre-ref bump stuff seemed affected by the fact they were building to a DQ.

Terry Rudge vs. Alan Kilby (6/18/81) This was everything I could have hoped for from Rudge & Kilby and more. They were given the six rounds on the undercard of the Big Daddy/Giant Haystacks Wembley Arena show and basically went for as much heat as they could possibly get. Kilby was one of the most likeable guys on the circuit, not only because he was deaf, but because he was an excellent and charismatic worker with tremendous babyface presence. It's an old point of mine, but it's extremely difficult to play a likeable babyface in wrestling and Kilby was second only to Steve Grey in the UK and possibly better than him. Since Kilby was so popular, Rudge was in full-on rudo mode here, and spent a large portion of the match sparring with Kilby in a manner befitting the best Fujiwara shoot style bouts. He worked a mix of inside shots and legal strikes, both of which pissed Kilby off, and they teased everything from a pull-apart brawl to Rudge being thrown out. In fact, if there was ever a bout that should've been thrown out, this made a good case for it. Rudge kept coming out of his corner before the bell despite having two public warnings to his name and the crowd let the ref have it. The finish was kind of obvious and probably could have been executed better, but it got a strong pop from the crowd and Rudge posed gratuitously on the outside, including on one of the chairs near Walton, which amused me as I'd never seen Rudge do any pantomime before. Flash pin aside, a really good bout, probably in the top six Rudge bouts I've seen. Delivered big time. Terry Rudge vs. Gil Singh (6/15/82) This was the usual high quality albeit heatless match between the two. Singh was much bigger than I remembered and the size difference between the two was far greater than I could recall. There was some good grappling, but Singh was a bit too dominant for my liking, especially in the fifth round where he basically rode Rudge the entire round. Definitely one for the Rudge purists, though, as he added plenty of sweet touches.

I wonder if the Lex character ever got confused by the number of times he turned. Y'know, maybe take stock of his life.

Childs said he was almost never less than good. I don't think that's really true.

I like Stan Hansen as much as the next guy, but he had more than his share of average matches. I can't remember ever seeing a good Hansen/Brody tag.

I was thinking more along the lines of his wrestler vs. martial artists fights v. Gerard Gordeau, Chris Dolman and Willie Wilhelm, though Don Nielsen was a popular Muay Thai fighter in Japan at the time. I can't find the Vrij match online so I don't know about the theatrics, but it's worth noting that the first RINGS card didn't feature a lot of native talent: Koichiro Kimura vs. Hideki Hosaka Peter Smit vs. Herman Renting Willie Peeters vs. Marcel Haarmans Chris Dolman vs. Bill Kazmier Akira Maeda vs. Dick Leon-Vrij Aside from an exhibition against Kimura on an all-kicking boxing card, Maeda didn't face a native until the 12/16/94 card. Vrij was always a bit of a douche, but I can't remember him being built up as a foreign heel type. Also, the comparable UWF-i match was Takada vs. Burton, not Tamura/Kakihara. Vrij was at least a legit kickboxer. Burton was an ex-WWF jobber, Global worker.

I didn't get the shoot style connection, either. It just seemed like a regular match between the two. It probably would have been more interesting if it had been a sub-10 minute shoot style bout as the stand-up portions was the only real action prior to the finish.

I'd just like to respectfully point out that Ta-Gar was lord of one volcano.

Wrestlemania III was supposed to have aired live on the original Sky channel w/ I and II broadcast in the lead-up. Apparently, it showed Superstars, Wrestling Challenge and Saturday Night's Main Event.

Screensport showed NWA, AWA, Stampede, ICW, GWA, South West Championship Wrestling and WCCW. The Lifestyle channel showed a bunch of wrestling too -- Glow, PoWW, Global (Florida), and Pro Wrestling This Week.

Maeda had a number of worked shoots against foreigners in both New Japan and UWF so I don't think it's much of a surprise.

Pardon my ignore, but you can bet on wrestling?

The part where Warrior starts talking to his hands is one of the stupidest things in wrestling history.

Harley Race vs. Terry Funk, Championship Wrestling From Florida 1974 This was Solie narrating over some short clips. Seemed pretty stip heavy -- a Texas Death Match to decide the number one contender for the NWA World Championship with the winner getting a minute to do whatever he likes to the loser. More of a Terry match than a Race match from the looks of it, at least that's how the clips made it appear. Terry did some cool shit like shuffling along the ropes to hit his knee drop and convulsing on the mat when Race hit his flying headbutt. Race didn't look that good from what was shown. Weak bumps to the outside. He sold well between falls when Roop was giving him water but that was about it.

Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard vs. Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff, 12/12/87 Today's random Tully match is a fun Worldwide match from a December Greensboro card. Tully does really do anything memorable outside of some sweet arm work on Rhodes, but I thought it was interesting how these guys were able to work a basic FIP tag match, have a DQ finish, outside interference from both Flair and Luger, and still manage to accomplish more than twelve minutes of your average WWF tag match.

Watched that Savage/Garvin cage match and man is Poffo's commentary brutal. Sucks all the life out of the match. I switched it to mute and could appreciate the match more, but it wasn't just Poffo's commentary that made the match feel monotonous. I didn't think much of the rhythm in this match. It pretty much followed the same note all match long, and for as much crap as the WWF gets for its cage match rules I don't really see why the cage was necessary here. They could have had the exact same match without it. Pretty average.

Managed to catch the 4/26/80 Rose/Martel match where Buddy is wearing the wig. The skeptic in me still can't see how Rose was the best worker of the 80s/early 80s, but I did think this was an excellent match for the first two falls. The final fall and finish wasn't what I was looking for in terms of watching an isolated match, but more importantly I'm still waiting to see Rose do all these amazingly little details that he gets pimped for.