ohtani's jacket

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.

I think he's talking about Bigelow's first stint in '87.

Steve Regal vs. Terry Rudge (Hamburg 10/7/88) I've been waiting to see this for a long time and it didn't disappoint. Rudge was awesome during this period where he grew a moustache and worked the German tournaments. Regal worked from underneath but you'd expect that given that Rudge was one of the premier asskickers of the era and Regal was relatively inexperienced. I've been super impressed with how Regal looks in these late 80s handhelds compared to the bollocks TV matches he had with All-Star, but this was more of a Rudge showcase. That hammerlock spot was out of this world good. Steve Regal vs. Tony St. Clair (Reslo 1988) Tony St. Clair is a guy who've always said was a good foil for the top heels of the day, but this was the first time for me to really see him as a veteran. St. Clair controlled most of the match and it was pretty decent considering he was never much of a worker, but apart from a couple of flash holds it wasn't the most exciting match in world. Worth watching if you want to see early Regal but not outstanding. Steve Regal vs. Robbie Brookside (handheld) I think this is from early '88, possibly 1/8/88 at Gillingham. This was a fascinating look at what a long, non-televised houseshow match looked like compared to a TV match. Again, there was a stark difference between what the young workers were allowed to show on a houseshow and what they were meant to do at a taping. Regal looked amazing here. There was pretty much no difference between his work here and his work in WCW five years later. Match has a bit of down time since they're going long, but it's a well worked bout and a great look at how good Regal was even in '88.

Tully Blanchard vs. Bob Sweetan Watched two of their matches and they were both disappointing. The first was the final of the tournament to crown the SCW Heavyweight champion, which was an angle basically after Adonis had laid Sweetan out with his Goodnight Irene sleeper after Sweetan won their semi-final and Sweetan entered the final injured. The second match was a Texas Death Match that was also a front for an angle involving Tully and Adonis with the work being pretty ho-hum beforehand.

There were 360 matches that aired from the 70s on TWC and 390 matches from the 80s, but if you count the original broadcast stuff that was recorded there's a bit of extra footage from the late-70s but a significant amount of footage from the 80s. A lot of it is JIP, but a lot of TWC stuff is clipped as well. WoS was still good from '80-84. It wasn't until wrestling became a stand alone show in '85 that Joint Promotions started to hurt from the jumps to All Star. Of course the 80s stuff isn't as good or interesting as the 70s stuff, but hopefully the 80s set will get a boost from many of the workers being unknown to people and the footage that didn't air on TWC.

His CMLL tour in 2010 was well received.

Jerry, it depends which promotion you're talking about and which part of Japan the match is from, but I think on the whole the fans watch the matches the same way we watch the tapes -- they mark out, get excited and cheer, but don't boo as such. In fact, if you've ever heard a Japanese crowd boo because they think they should be booing it's the worst thing ever (unless it's Osaka Pro, huh Gordi?) When a heel does something really bad to say Antonio Inoki, the heat tends to be in the comeback. The heels themselves were super popular and I think the lack of jawing with the fans is one reason why they were seen as entertaining as opposed to being truly hated. Hatred on the part of Japanese fans would be reserved for a native whose character or behaviour rubs people up the wrong way.