ohtani's jacket

A big Hansen fan would probably find him more varied than someone who's only watched his best known stuff. Personally, I think his matches, though they were almost universally brawls, were varied enough that he doesn't really seem like a one trick pony to me. Again, going back to the Brit doco, McManus was portrayed as the greatest heel of all-time and he wrestled pretty much the same match in all of the footage we have. Now to be fair, the footage is from the latter part of McManus' career, but the Pallo/McManus footage wasn't remarkably different from what we know of Mick. Arguably more intense, but nothing earth shattering. But McManus was such a great performer (and I really, really rate McManus) that I could watch his schtick all day long. Regal didn't sound like much of a fun when the topic of Catweazle and McManus was brought up, so others may disagree, but I think McManus is an example of masterful schtick. Breaks would be another, although Jimmy had more match types than Mick.

I think reinvention is more along the lines of the transformation from Kid Tarzan Jonathan to Exotic Adrian Street and is more apparent in gimmick changes, unmaskings and character turns. In the case of Jumbo, if you were to chart his career as young challenger --> All Japan ace --> grumpy vet, I'd argue that has more to do with aging. No doubt Jumbo adapted to each stage of his career, but I don't think he necessarily reinvented himself. In Funk's case, I don't think the Funk we saw in 1989 was markedly different from the Funk that fought Lawler in the early 80s and I think many of the traits on show were evident in his Japan babyface work, but I'd agree with Dylan's argument that Funk was versatile enough to play a different role in every territory he entered. That's a plus for Funk and one of his strengths. It may be the reason that some people hold him in higher regard than Flair, however I would argue that Funk was in a different position from Flair and that while we may have seen different shades of Flair in each territory there was basically a necessity for him to play Flair just about everywhere he went. But yes, ultimately they both represent the opposite of Duggan. I don't believe that you can discount a wrestler with Duggan like schtick from the GOAT arguments, however. I just got done watching the British doco where they praise career spanning schtick so perhaps that's influencing me. I don't reallly see how the 90s All Japan guys are exempt from criticism either. If you're talking about versatility then surely they failed to change in the same vain as North American examples.

Ok, I take your point about personal tastes. I don't really see how Funk or Jumbo reinvented themselves. The changes in their personas were a natural progression over time. They evolved as they grew older. This may be a positive for them, but does that mean that the absence of reinvention is a negative for others? Why can't it be a plus for some wrestlers and a non-factor for others? Perhaps Flair had a persona that was so over there wasn't any scope to reinvent it. Perhaps what he really needed was better stories, better angles and better feuds. There aren't too many main event attractions who change their style once they're established. Perhaps Flair perfected his act so well that people still wanted to see it long after many of us were sick of it. If you think about it, it's difficult to imagine Flair doing anything different. That may be the trappings of being Ric Flair, but it's hard for me to see it as a negative that he never mixed up his act. In the case of someone like Negro Navarro I would say his transformation was a total success, but I would also temper that by saying the little footage we have of him as a younger worker is not quite as compelling as the worker he evolved into. I don't see how versatility is as important as being really, really good at what you do. Your act is everything in pro-wrestling and since the overwhelming majority of workers never change if you're going to have arguments about who was the best I think it ought to boil down to who was the absolute best at what they did not whether they versatile. If you think that being versatile is part of being the absolute best then fair enough, but like I said I don't think it's imperative that a wrestler changes.

All Japan is the greatet style ever created and you can't say the same about touring NWA champ style? I thought Williams told me people like you don't exist. How many singers, actors, directors, writers or artists in general are eclectic? Not very many. Creative people generally draw from the same well every time. I really don't understand your versatility argument when you have such conservative views on wrestling. You seem to be misinterpreting what jdw and I have said. I never said that 90s All Japan is flawless or the only style worth watching. But yes, I do think it's the best. Anyway, the fact that versatility is so rare is precisely what makes it so extraordinary when someone demonstrates it. When guys are relatively equal in other respects, it's something that should be taken into account. What happens if someone thinks the touring NWA champ style is the greatest style ever created? Who says Flair or anyone else for that matter have to reinvent themselves? And how exactly did Funk or Jumbo do it? They got older.

That's not exactly what I said, but you never were very good at following someone else's argument.

Name some.

All Japan is the greatet style ever created and you can't say the same about touring NWA champ style? I thought Williams told me people like you don't exist. How many singers, actors, directors, writers or artists in general are eclectic? Not very many. Creative people generally draw from the same well every time. I really don't understand your versatility argument when you have such conservative views on wrestling.

That's true of most lucha workers, though. The majority of lucha trios aren't workrate trios matches where everyone stands out. Usually there's a central feud and the other guys are window dressing or the match is flat because they're mailing it in or taking it easy that night. What's more, Santo is a technico which means he has little schtick to work comedy all match like a Satanico or Emilio or Fuerza. With Santo, it's more about the same moves, the same match patterns and the same performances in singles matches. Often the matches are excellent, but you can usually call what Santo is going to do in the ring.

Rey in the WWE is so much better than Rey in WCW or AAA it's not even funny and I don't even like the spots he does or Michael Cole's god awful commentary about the HEART AND SOUL OF REY MYSTERIO! He just had flat out better matches.

Maybe, but one of the biggest gripes about lucha is that it's illogical and it's full of exaggerated, theatrical bumping. Fans accept it as part and parcel of lucha and see it as both comforting and amusing, but US wrestling gets held up to a different light. Different expectations, I suppose.

No, it didn't shed any light on Big Daddy. It was a digest version look at the history of British wrestling not some 18 1/2 hour Ken Burns epic. There was some footage of Rocco, but it was one of those documentaries where they give generalised answers for everything (such as the decline in popularity) and you accept it because it's a doco and not meant to be a thesis on the subject.

Where are all these matches where the arm work is paid off?

It's from '95.

Yeah, Atlantis Chronos Goth I think she calls herself.

I think Funk had one of the great personas of all-time. As others have mentioned everyone knows someone who looks or acts like Terry Funk and he had tremendous range from serious right through to deranged, my favourite being affronted like the time Flair told him he wasn't top ten material. But he's one of those workers where I'll pick chunks of his career to watch. I like his stuff in Memphis, the NWA and WCW more than any other period of his career. Do you think his brawling, his selling or his fun persona prevented him from having better matches?

Lucha is huge on schtick especially in trios, but just as there are multiple ways to work a trios match, the best workers have multiple routines. The Brazos and Infernales are good examples of this. Casas, Dandy, Panther, Santo etc. are all great workers, but they basically wrestled the same match again and again depending on the stip. Most of the time there's a comfort in that as Jerry alluded to, but El Hijo del Santo, in particular, is one of the most repetitive workers of all time.

Arn did comedic stooge selling all the time. It was a big part of his repetoire and he was great at it. I don't care about the Flair flip. It's a signature spot and signature spots are part of pro-wrestling. I don't really think they affect the integrity of a match. The best skill you can have as a pro-wrestler is to be able to do your schtick within an otherwise serious match. McManus, Breaks, Satanico, Fujiwara, Arn, Funk were all great at this.

The doco was fairly good. There wasn't much in it for the hardcores aside from the new footage, but I liked the women's reactions to Klyondyke Kate, the weird medium/adviser/spokeswoman for Kendo Nagasaki and the Johnny Kincaid poem. I also want to see Steve Logan vs. Masambula as much as Pallo/McManus.

All righty, but we didn't even have sports magazines in New Zealand during Iaukea's day.

Oh yeah, Sting can't compare to the biggest star in the history of New Zealand. Did we even have a mainstream in Iaukea's day? And as for Williams being a star in Japan, where were the national endorsements, the movies, the household name? Williams was a star for wrestling fans in Japan the same as Sting in America. What Dave wrote was pretty convincing, but he should really stick to the US examples.

Gotta agree with Loss. Flair was flat in this.

Flair/Luger was an infinitely better match-up than Flair/Sting but I'm not sure that has anything to do with it. To me the Flair/Sting dynamic never really worked. Even watching the Luger/Flair matches years later, I wanted the Total Package to kick Flair's ass and take the title. With Sting it was more whether poor little Borden could overcome his knee troubles and hang in there.

To be honest, I don't think Sting was ace material. He didn't have the mic skills for it and I'm not sure he had the right look either. To me he was an Intercontinental Championship level guy, the equivalent of which was probably the US Championship but I never felt that belt was handled as well as the IC title so bear with me. With better booking he may have had a more successful tilt at the mainevent, but Sting's saving grace is that his work wasn't all that bad during the period in question. Given that Sting's work wasn't the problem, I have my doubts whether better booking would have helped the company's bottom line. A down period is a down period and few (if any) companies have been able to avoid them. It's possible that people started tuning out and houseshow numbers dropped because Sting didn't catch on, but I suspect it had more to do with Crockett as people knew it having run its course. Sting would have had to have been one of the great all-time attractions to prevent the downslide. Having said that if business had been a little healthy or Sting had drawn a few good gates from time to time maybe he'd have a stronger case. It seems WCW was still Flair to a lot of people during Sting's run and I wonder what things would have been like if it was obvious Flair was never coming back ala Hogan and the WWF. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems Bret was accepted by what remained of the WWF audience moreso than Sting was accepted in Flair's absence. Not that I mean to make living in Flair's shadow into the latest excuse for Sting. If he'd been overwhelmingly popular he would have made people forget about Flair. I just think the mechanics of what makes someone a star in pro-wrestling is interesting.

You could make a case for Moncrief as one of the top three players in the East in '82-83.

I don't think Sting's 1990-93 period should be used as a positive or thrown out. I just think it should be properly assessed and weighed accordingly, because to me there's a big difference between a guy who bombs on top because he's a terrible promo and a bad worker and a guy who is handicap by injury, poor booking, a downturn in business and politics even if the end result is the same. Who were the top 10 draws in the US from 1990 to 1993 and how much more did they draw in comparison to Sting? If Hogan's drawing power was reduced during the period then how can Sting have been expected to be a big draw? It's all well and good to say he failed and that's that, but I don't see how he could have realistically overcome those obstacles and I can't think of anyone who drew under those sort of circumstances. But this is getting a bit redundant and he's not going in anyway so it hardly matters.