ohtani's jacket

I watched that Sting/Orndorff match just for the heck of it. God, listening to Tony and Heenan is torturous. A lot of Bobby's jokes are bad, but the dead air after Heenan feeds Tony a set-up for a one liner, the amount of times Tony cuts Bobby off and the times where he laughs but at Heenan and not the joke are ridiculous. The match itself is the most meaningless bout ever. Even if Sting had taken that bump into the barricade it wouldn't have improved the match one iota. I thought both guys were phoning it, probably because of the stupid set and the monotonous taping commitment. Orndorff often had his working shoes in in WCW but I don't think he bust a gut here. Half the match was stalling.

Watched the Flair/Morton houseshow match. Looked like a typical Ric Flair match, but the final third was so badly clipped that it's impossible to say anything about it for certain. There definitely looked like a wider arc from the beginning to the end then you commonly get in a Bret Hart match, however. Next up was the Bret/Valentine match from '89. A few notes: * I could see how people would like Bret's punches and elbow strikes better than Flair's strikes. * Despite Bret's matches feeling slower overall, he's faster and arguably more intense on offence than Flair. * Lord Alfred Hayes made me chuckle when they went to a close-up of Bret working on top and Hayes said he looked unperturbed. He looked more worried about his hair than selling. * The match layout was really simple with Bret controlling the early going, making a simple mistake and allowing Valentine to take over. The psychology was unremarkable. * Bret (at least in '89) was much better at working from underneath than working on top. The best part of the match was the selling he did when he first tried to make a comeback. He literally sold that he wasn't able to get in spring in his legs for a kip-up of sorts. Really clever. * The finish was stupid as Perfect came down to distract Hart and instead of costing him the match it ended in a time limit draw. What was the point of Hennig coming to ringside? Possibly the lamest interference I've ever seen. Not Bret's fault, however. * Match was decent but the finish spoiled it. There was no real story or narrative, but I do like the way they slowly sold people on Bret moving from a tag team competitor to a singles competitor. I thought that was really well done and I imagine a lot of people feel they "grew up" with Hart as he moved up the WWF ladder. Lastly, I watched Flair vs. Luger from the Great American Bash '88, which is the weakest of the big card Flair/Luger matches but a decent night's entertainment nonetheless. Again some notes: * First, I fucking love the Package. Just wanted to get that out of my system. * There's been talk about Flair looking weak as champion in this thread, but I wonder what a heel champ is supposed to do in this sort of match. Would it have made sense for Flair to dominate Luger for long stretches? The story of the match was that Luger was supposed to be Flair's most difficult challenge yet and that the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s was going to mark the end of Flair's reign and the beginning of a new era in Luger. Flair was meant to put that storyline over, and did as far as I could tell. * Another point about Flair looking weak is that his NWA title matches always followed the adage that the challenger had to beat the champion not the other way round. Flair always made note of this in interviews as did the commentators. Therefore it was part of the psych. * Regardless of all this, there were always moments in a match or on commentary where you were reminded that Flair could in fact wrestle and that there was a good reason why he was the NWA heavyweight champion. * Luger was pretty green here compared to his '89 and '90 work, but Flair made him look good. I wonder if Bret ever made an opponent look as good as Luger looked here. It's possible. Maybe Diesel or someone like that. * This was a truncated version of the Flair match for the TV time limit, but it all made sense. I still don't get the criticism that Flair did things for the hell of it. * Once again the match had a much larger arc than the Bret match. It's not far to compare them I suppose since one was a major bout and the other was a meaningless TV match, but I don't think it's much of a surprise that a Flair match feels bigger and more important than a Bret match. * Personally, I thought Flair's turnbuckle flip to the outside was awesome in this match. The Flair flop didn't work for me, but the turnbuckle spot was great as was the Package's flexing. * The finish sucked royally. If they'd worked the cut into something worse than that, I could have understood but that cut was pathetic and the timing of the cut, the Maryland offical stepping in, the torture rack and Young calling for the bell didn't milk the drama the way it could have.

A vignette informs character which informs ringwork. They're interconnected. There have been plenty of people who only watch wrestling for the angles and storylines and there are plenty of people who will watch the greatest of matches and ask what the backstory was, why the wrestlers were fighting, what angles occurred before the match. Personally, I think Ted's best performances in the WWF were his matches against the likes of Dustin Rhodes and Virgil where his character stuff truly came to the fore, and if I was making a "Best of the Million Dollar Man" comp I'd absolutely include the basketball vignette as being along the same lines as the best of Ted. I don't think people divorce that stuff from the matches nearly as much as they're claiming. It's all part and parcel of wrestling. People want a good angle, great promos and an all-time great match. On the other hand, I think you need to be honest and admit that Ted's matches in the WWF were a disappointment. As great as he was at playing the Million Dollar Man, he didn't have a single match that people would consider one of the great matches in WWF history let alone a MOTYC. And while there were limits on how good a match could be in the era he worked in, there were other workers who exceeded those limitations such as Savage. So while you could argue that Ted was a great character and that his ring work reflects that, ultimately his matches just don't hit the spot. Honestly, if there were a bunch of three star Ted Dibiase WWF matches I'd think more of his run than I actually do, but a lot of his stuff is turgid. And when you factor in that his work in Japan wasn't that great, you start to think that maybe Dibiase just wasn't that good at having matches, Midsouth work be damned. Ted is a guy who everyone wants to like but have trouble with. In that respect, I think it's cool that you're a huge Dibiase mark.

Bret didn't have signature spots he liked to do in every match? He didn't have five moves of doom because sometimes he'd swap the inverted atomic drop with a verical suplex or a running bulldog? C'mon, Bret learnt to wrestle by getting the crap beaten out of him literally and figuratively, which presumably is why he sold so much in matches, and he learnt to work sequences of moves even when doing simple shit like working over a body part. Claiming that Bret didn't have a formula because he may or may not have wrestled differently in a couple of big matches is like arguing that Flair didn't have a formula because the Wahoo match was slightly different than the Flair match we're used to. Bret Hart wasn't some kind of superworker who brought new and original transitions to every match and unparalleled psychology. He was Bret. He wrestled Bret matches. There are plenty of workers who have had great matches months, weeks, even days apart that differed from one another. Whether they were all-time great matches is another story (it's debatable whether the Austin/Hart matches are all-time great matches, anyway), but it's not that difficult considering there's more than one way to work a match. You could wrestle a broadway on one night, a brawl the next night, a sprint the night after that. A luchador could wrestle a hair match, a title match, a workrate trios match, a brawling trios, any number of variations.

I stumbled upon this old Kendo Nagasaki article again -- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,562562,00.html I don't think Kendo gets mentioned enough when it comes to Inoki types in wrestling.

When I watch US wrestling I want to see the big matches pay off all of the pre-match promos and angles. I think mic skills are worth considering in that regard. However, if you were to start judging workers on the total package I can't see people suddenly downgrading Kobashi or Toyota or Atlantis because they have poor mic skills. And you can't assume that just because a crowd was hot for Jumbo/Tenryu that either guy was that good at putting over their fight outside the ring.

I've only ever been to GAEA and Osaka Pro and they had an interesting cross section of fans. Rob would know more about the average Joshi show.

Lorefice seemed to rate Dory over Terry at the time:

The audience for any pro-wrestling event in Japanese these days is pretty disparate. I don't think it fits easily into any sort of demographic.

They tried to create new idols for the schoolgirls but no-one caught on. There were diehard schoolgirls who stuck around to around '92 or so, but as a fad it ended with the retirement of Dump in '88 and then petered out as Lioness and Chigusa followed her into retirement the following year. They couldn't create any stars to keep their golden television spot, so they moved their attention to the male wrestling fans. The rationale at the time was that you had young men with disposable income who would pay for tickets rather than having to rely on parents and that you didn't need to have a prime television spot because they could afford expensive VHS tapes. Ogawa produced the video tapes at the time and was probably pushing that idea. I think there was also a belief that the men would stick around as opposed to the schoolgirls who got caught up in the fad then turned to something else after a few years, but that proved to be untrue. They cashed in while they had that audience and probably made more money than at any other point in the company's history, but it was as much a fad for the male audience as it had been for the schoolgirls. Retirements, non-retirements, poor booking, repetitive match-ups, a stale in-ring style, terrible show management and poor investments killed attendance and then the company.

This 1/28/80 card was a great show: Jeff Kaye vs. Tony "Banger" Walsh (1/28/80) Jeff Kaye is pretty much familiar as being one of the refs later on. He was in the twilight of his wrestling career here and giving away quite a bit of weight to Walsh in this catchweight contest. Walsh is a heel who've been slow to join the party on, but he was one of the guys the crowds loved to hate. This match was cleverly laid out, with Kaye twice foiling what looked llike sure fire falls to Walsh, making it seem like he had all the momentum for an upset. He was also brilliant at retaliating to all of Walsh's inside moves and illegal follow ups, which I found amusing since he'd have to ref that sort of stuff a few years later. Walsh and referee Peter Szakacs had awesome chemistry in this match, butting heads between rounds, and there was a stray granny at ringside as well. But what really set this apart for me was the awesome finish, as Walsh pinched Nagasaki's finisher and broke Jeff Kaye in two. Kaye sold it as well as I've ever seen someone sell on WoS and the threat of an upset was squashed.

Yeah, I thought about mentioning Misawa/Kawada. Most of that hinges on the fact that Misawa was Baba's favourite. Then of course, when Baba dies, Misawa leads a mass-walkout and starts up a rival promotion, whereas Kawada stayed, professing that it was "Baba's wishes". So yeah, it all seems to be on Kawada's side. Both were so well matched together, that even with no personal issues, they would still have had stunning matches. From what I've heard it was Misawa who disliked Kawada more than Kawada being jealous of Misawa or anything like that.

Ohtani's peak was from '96 to '98. Years ago I would have narrowed it down to '96, but I think if there were more complete matches available from '97 and '98 we'd find that the drop off from '96 wasn't that big. The February '98 Liger/Ohtani match looks really great, for example.

A couple of the matches aired on Asahi. I've only seen the commercial clipped version of Wagner/Ohtani, which is fun but nothing essential. The Samurai TV show wasn't that much longer than an episode of World Pro Wrestling, but it may have fuller versions of the matches. That Sendai tag, for example, only 2:40 aired on WPW. You'd have to think more of it aired on Samurai TV.

I watched Flair vs. Wahoo McDaniel from Battle of the Belts '85. Not really a Flair formula match as it was best two-out-of-three falls, but it was a 45 minute match where everything Flair did made sense. Wasn't a great match, but there was nothing that struck me as illogical. Afterwards, I watched the Bret/Yokozuna cage match from MSG. I knew that I wouldn't like it going in, but what a boring match. It's nothing but your turn/my turn escape attempts. I didn't see any evidence of a compelling narrative, the work wasn't especially cohesive and what should be the big spot in any Bret/Yoko match (Bret knocking him out of his feet) was tossed out in the first exchange. Not only that, but he knocked him down with punches. Didn't see any master storytelling here. For comparison's sake, I watched a Flair/Garvin cage match from '85. It was a pretty standard Flair/Garvin match, but again everything made sense. This "chicken with its head cut off" Flair must have started later than '85. None of these matches told a proper story and the narratives weren't especially strong either, but that Bret match is dullsville.

You can't have more than one true character, but pro-wrestlers are allowed two: one for when they're a heel and one for when they're a face. The rest is simply characterisation.

It would only really be a theme of Flair playing the chickenshit pussy if he played that character the whole way through. Chickenshit pussy is supposed to represent his true character under pressure, but it's a bit more nuanced than that. Nevertheless, I'll sample some Flair matches today bearing these comments in mind. I think we've pretty much reached a divide, however, where it's clear that some people are fans of chickenshit pussies while others would rather see a guy who puts on matches for the coal miners and the lumberjacks.

Taking regular breaks. I only really dedicate three months of the year to watching wrestling.

That's more of a story than a narrative, but let's not get hung up on that. Since you've identified a narrative I don't see how you can claim it was accidental. How can Flair be formulaic and repetitive and work the same match for 15+ years and people think there was no rhyme or reason to it? Just because spot A didn't lead to spot B in a logical and reasoned fashion doesn't mean there isn't an overall picture. If Flair did things randomly then we'd be talking about a skittish worker who occasionally struck upon a good performance, but Flair knew how to put a performance together.

I hope you realise liking all those actors is the equivalent of liking Bret Hart more than Ric Flair. Care to explain? They're all boring actors.

I don't get this at all. I don't think I've ever seen a Ric Flair match where I didn't get what he was doing in the last 2/3rds, at least not one that I can remember or sat all the way through. Particularly the final third, since the middle of any match can get messy. You make it seem like he's all over the shop. I don't see how he could be accused of having a formula if it as random as you're implying. And logical and coherent doesn't always mean good. It can also mean boring and standard. But I feel like Bret's getting a bit of a rough time here. If we restrict it to only US workers in the 90s, I think there are quite a few wrestlers who were better TV workers than Bret, who may have had one or two great matches on PPV, but who didn't really deliver the kind of big match performances that Bret gave. It may have been a case of having opposite stages to perform on, but I think it's a feather in Bret's cap and you could probably argue the case that Bret was better than a lot of his 90s contemporaries.

I hope you realise liking all those actors is the equivalent of liking Bret Hart more than Ric Flair.

In pro-wrestling I would define a narrative as the ordering of events in a pro-wrestling match to create a dramatic effect through the structure of the plot. I suspect if you looked at a Flair studio appearance from the 80s and compared it to a Bret TV match, Flair's match would have the stronger narrative. Yes and no. For a long time he was, rightly or wrongly, accused of always following the five moves of doom. My intention wasn't to defend Flair as such, simply to point out that Bret was a formulaic worker like Santo and Flair and many other great wrestlers. I think maybe we are worlds apart on this because it's more important to me that the match pays off the angle than paying off a previous spot. Having said that, Bret clearly paid more attention to detail.

I agree with you here. I don't know that 80s WWF was an entirely different genre from Crockett but they were certainly distinguishable from one another. As a wrestling fan, I wish Ted Dibiase had a higher number of good matches, but from a WWF perspective I think it makes more sense to judge him by how well he wrestled as his character rather than whether he was technically good, though this may be truly of practically all workers and I still maintain that he was a ring technician. I watched that '89 Bret/Dibiase match and when Bret countered the rear chinlock with a top wristlock and Dibiase went for the hair, that mother knew what he was doing.

There's only a handful of Bret matches that tell a story in the proper sense of the word. I actually think the lack of narrative in your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Bret Hart match is the reason why Loss couldn't find too many interesting Bret matches outside of his big match performances. If he'd been a master storyteller like a Satanico or Casas then every performance would have been interesting, but your average Bret match is just a match and can't claim much of a story. I dare say there's more of a narrative in your average Flair match than there is in a Bret Hart match, but what I can't abide by is the insinuation that Flair was repetitive but Bret somehow wasn't. We're all familiar with Bret's moves and signature spots. I'm sure many of us could do a pretty good job at calling a Bret match. The sternum-first bump into the middle turnbuckle, the shoulder into the ringpost, sticking his knees up when an opponent came off the top rope, the times he played possum... all these things may be better or more logical than Flair's spots, but it's not like he did something new in every match. Whenever he'd debut a new spot (like the ringpost figure four spot) it would immediately become part of his repertoire. He was a guy who worked within his comfort zone and his matches were often slow, IMO, especially in WCW. I can understand being a mark for the guy and what he represented, but in no way was he a polar opposite to Flair.