ohtani's jacket

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.

Bret reminds me of Pearl Jam, since he was a fan of theirs and reviewed their Vitology album in WWF magazine.

The matches I watched were from World Pro Wrestling on TV Asahi. Ditch would know better than me, but I believe Ohtani/Dragon, Wagner/Kanemoto, Liger/Sasuke and Kanemoto/Wagner vs. Ohtani/Takaiwa are available in full on commercial tape. Most of the Super Juniors stuff was clipped even on the commercial release.

Reading through this thread piqued my curosity about the juniors in '98, but honestly their matches are so badly cut that I think it's going to be a great source of frustration when it comes to putting the yearbook together. Anyway, here's what I could track down: This was nothing special. The only reason I can think of for including it was that it happened on the Jan 4th show. Standard New Japan trios action. About 7 minutes aired. Match isn't notable in any way, but the action is good. Doesn't build to either of the Liger singles matches if that's what you're thinking. Less than ten minutes aired, but what was shown was really great. Really boring. Not an interesting match at all. Excellent match between these two, as you'd expect. Not as exciting as their February match but more is shown. Didn't care for this much, but I guess if you're interested in the '98 version of Liger vs. Sami it's worth sticking on. Around half the match aired. Nothing special whatsoever. The February six-man was much better. Only five minutes of this aired and it was the same recycled Liger/Ohtani shtick. I'd say this is worthless.

Caudle had a professional sounding voice and his delivery was good. I never really had a problem with him. Having a good voice is pretty much key. I was watching a Bret/Dibiase match where some guy on youtube overdubbed his own commentary and in the comments he was going on about how he had more talent than Michael Cole. Needless to say, the guy better hang onto his day job because his voice and delivery were awful.