ohtani's jacket

Gotch and Robinson arriving in Japan didn't change this part of the Japanese wrestling culture. It continued well into the 80s and beyond. The biggest shift in wrestling that occurred was the rise of high profile native vs. native matches, which became more frequent in the 70s. Gotch had an influence on the shoot style movement, and Robinson was an influence on workers like Jumbo Tsuruta, but it's a fantasy to suggest that they brought proper wrestling to Japan.

How did Japan remodel its scene after Gotch and Robinson arrived? Japan actually provided work for a number of European workers throughout the 70s and 80s, and NJPW liked to send its rookies to the UK, so they weren't oblivious towards European wrestling. US fans would have instinctively understood the heel vs. face matches on ITV, as well as the showcase matches from the wilder personalities. The 60s still had plenty of "technical" wrestling, for want of a better term, and that continued into the 70s and 80s. France was wilder than the UK in terms of brawling, but there were plenty of heated ITV bouts over the years.

The thing is South Africa didn't even get television until 1976. Something is off about the timeline that's being presented. If it's Pat Roach and Max Crabtree talking about selling British wrestling to overseas countries then it must have been from a later period than (a) I'm interested in as a fan or a collector and (b) the kinescopes that I've seen or have in my possession, which date from the mid-60s to the mid-70s It certainly doesn't match the Dr. Who period of the 1960s. I do believe that ITV wrestling made it to television stations overseas, I just don't think it had the impact that's being suggested. It reminds me of New Japan and Joshi airing in Italy in the 1980s. An interesting footnote, but not something that had an impact on the business.

I wish the sales of ITV wrestling to foreign markets was as well documented as the research into BBC sales of Dr. Who to overseas stations. We know that kinescope copies of ITV wrestling exist and have fallen into the hands of private collectors over the years. We also know some of these prints exist in the ITV archives. The missing link is some kind of tangible evidence of it screening on TV in other countries. That shouldn’t be so hard to come up with. In what manner, if at all, did it air in Zimbabwe, for example? Television was only available amongst a small percent of the white population in the cities during the period of ITV wrestling that in most interested in.

It's going to take more than a quote from Pat Roach to convince me that British wrestling was being sold en masse to overseas markets. Where is the proof that British wrestling aired overseas? If there were so many prints sold, why is it so rare to find one in the wild? Why are we assuming that anything prior to 1975 in the INA archives is an overseas print? Even if prints regularly found their way to parts of the Commonwealth, though funnily enough not the major countries, how is this any more significant than the NWA champion touring countries and putting on matches? In New Zealand, they used tiny venues like the Auckland Town Hall or a YMCA where they shot the TV, but when the NWA champ visited, they'd use Western Springs or Carlaw Park. I know that British guys worked in some far flung places, but I don't see the same type of impact as the touring Americans.

Where is the proof of these vast overseas sales of kinescope prints to third world countries? If there were so many prints sold, where are they today? I'd sure like to get my hands on some of them.

Also, I can't believe those god damn awful German handhelds are being held up as a positive.

And it was a fine business model. It just wasn't the center of the wrestling universe. Even if you bundle all of Europe together -- the UK, France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and anywhere else I'm forgetting that had wrestling, I'm not convinced it was more important than the US and Japan. You could argue the wrestling was better, and you might be able to convince me that London and Paris were hotbeds of wrestling with more shows per week than Tokyo or any of the major cities in the US, but ultimately it comes down to money. The talent went where the money was.

I'm fairly confident that a world title that was defended in territories throughout the world was more important than the British, European or World Heavyweight championships. Folks in the UK may have been unaware of what was happening overseas, but the countries overseas were equally unaware of what was happening in the UK. Bruno drew bigger crowds in the North-East than anyone was capable of drawing in Europe, but may not have had the global impact that others did. Dusty travelled to overseas territories. My parents used to watch him live when he toured New Zealand and were big fans.

It's worth noting that a lot of the British workers entered North America through Canada presumably because of Commonwealth laws. It's a well known fact that working for Joint Promotions didn't pay particularly well. That's why the heavyweights spent so much time abroad touring in other countries. The wrestlers who worked strictly in the UK supplemented their income by taking on other jobs or owning pubs. The fact that the NWA champion rarely toured Europe brings into question the prestige of European wrestling at the time. I don't know how well France paid, but I imagine the situation was similar to the UK. I don't really see how anyone from Europe can be considered a bigger star than the NWA champions of the 70s, Bruno, Baba & Inoki, Dusty Rhodes, Andre the Giant, etc. Many of those stars were wrestling dates all over the world.

The money at the time was in the US and Japan. If the money had been better in the UK and France, you would have seen more big name stars tour there.

Kidd was a household name in the 60s, but his candidacy and rep is really based on the fact that he was champion for so many years and that all of the lightweights that followed, Saint, Cortez, Breaks, etc., copied parts of his repertoire. George Kidd footage from the 60s is one off the holy grails of WoS tape collecting, though I suspect that he worked a lot of showcase matches as many of the bouts are against younger opponents. The one that stands out to me is the bout against Modesto Aledo on the Royal Art Hall Show that Prince Phillip attended, though I'm not sure if film exists. Many of his title matches were held in Scotland and I'm not sure they were taped.

The Jacky Corn vs Billy Howes match from Cup Final day is the best Brit vs Frenchman match I’ve seen from either side of the channel.

This is certainly true. I also think the medium plays a part as television was constantly changing. Wrestling was a popular TV product in the early days of television as it was relatively easy to broadcast, but it had a definite shelf life.

There is a decline in European wresting across the same time period. One of the strengths of the 50s and 60s footage is that you had a bunch of foreign workers available to square off against the locals. And those foreign workers had a lot of places where they could work. As the work dried up, so did the talent pool. There was still a very good group of lightweight wrestlers on France n the 70s, but as with many other territories around the world, the heavyweight pool was dwindling, and it's the heavyweights who are so often the draw in wrestling. That said, whoever the booker was, and whatever the promotion was that was getting TV sporadically in the late 70s and 80s, they were the ones who made the decision to put the gimmick stuff on television. The alternative, I suppose, was putting two dinosaurs on TV and having them grapple, but they were still cheapening the product with the product they put on TV. It may have worked on house shows, but doesn't make for great looking television.

There were gimmicks and showiness long before 1971. There was a lot of that stuff going on in the 50s and 60s, more than made TV considering how many weekly shows there were in Paris, the snippet of it that made weekly TV, and the stuff that was going on out in the wop-wops. There was a definite decline in the quality of French wrestling over the course of the 1970s, and particularly into the 80s, but it had nothing to do with Flesh Gordon and it's a mistake to think he was the face of the decline or a poster child for everything that was wrong with Catch at the time. That may have been how it looked when all we had available was the trashy 90s stuff he did, but it was clear that a good worker in the early 80s and that Catch simply lacked the infrastructure it had enjoyed in the 50s and 60s. It's hard to piece together the decline of French wrestling as we don't have all the facts. We're basing almost all the information we have on whatever is in the archives. All we can tell for sure is that there were several promotors competing with each other in Paris in the 50s and 60s and eventually they whittled down to only a few. Whether that was because of business or the promoters retiring, I'm not sure. I would assume that it involved a decline in business, but there may have been other factors.

The trouble with this point of view, IMO, is when you're looking for historical information on how important a wrestler was historically, or culturally, you tend to look for the positives without taking a broader approach. If you look at AJW from the 70s and 80s, was there anything that AJW was doing that was entirely original? They were basically copying trends from both the entertainment industry and from within wrestling. Even the business model you're describing was unoriginal. It seems impressive within the context of wrestling but not within Japan. The Beauty Pair may be worthy of induction, but I wouldn't sound the trumpet too loudly.

Congrats. I saw the other day that Kohli has almost scored as many ODI centuries as Tendulkar, and I was like, when did that happen?

There are a lot of WoS reviews in the Microscope section of the board. Originally, I reviewed matches on another site and didn't copy those over to this board.

Bob Backlund vs. Adrian Adonis (WWF, 1/18/82) I was excited to watch this as it had been years since I'd seen it. It's the epitome of a slow burner. It takes a long time to get to the heights that you want it to reach. The finishing stretch is fantastic. It's everything you want from Adonis and Backlund. The working leading up to it? It's okay, but instead of building the anticipation it feels like they're holding back. I can see folks going either way on whether they think this is a great match. I'm not gonna lie, I thought the Buddy Rose match was better, but like I said, I can imagine someone else having a totally different take. Bob Backlund vs. Adrian Adonis (WWF, 3/28/82) I can't find the Philly match anywhere so I had to settle for their lumberjack match. I thought this was miles better than the Backlund vs. Rose lumberjack match. Better use of the lumberjack gimmick, insane heat from the Maryland crowd, and basically Adonis and Backlund throwing haymakers at each other for 15 minutes. I ended up thinking this was a really good match. Some great nearfalls, some tremendous camera shots and an awesome finish that was every bit as sensational as Vince made it out to be. Probably the best sprint version of an around-the-horn WWF feud that I can remember seeing.

I thought Daddy looked competent against John Elijah, and allegedly he has a similar match against Colin Joynson, which exists in at least one person's collection that I'm aware of. He looked decent in his other mid-70s work as well. So, I don't agree that there's no evidence that he was ever a competent wrestler.

I finished reading Naoki Urasawa's Monster, which is hands down one of the best written manga series you'll ever read. Superbly well-crafted, and one of the best comics of the 90s for my money. I'm contemplating watching the anime, but I might jump into another Urasawa series instead.

I picked up on that, too, but I'm not sure how much you can read into Vince's commentary. Bob Backlund vs. Buddy Rose (WWF, 10/16/82) This was a huge step down from their Madison Square Garden bout. Miles better than their lumberjack bout, but nowhere near as special as the MSG match. I think it's because it was more of a classic heel performance from Buddy than the challenge he put up at the Garden. Now, Buddy is good at the chicken shit heel stuff (some would say a master.) He gets into some serious jawing with the fans at ringside, and there's a dude with a "Playgirl" Buddy Rose cardboard sign, so Rose is definitely tapping into the heat he's generated, but watching Backlund pace back and forth like a caged animal while Buddy stales on the outside isn't what I wanted to see. The finish is rubbish, but explains why the return bout was a lumberjack match. It's a decent match if you like watching Buddy draw heat, but not a memorable Backlund performance by any stretch of the imagination.

Bob Backlund vs. Buddy Rose (WWF, 8/30/82) This is such a fantastic match. Easily one of the best matches from Bobs title reign. I think there's two reasons for that. The first reason is that Bob was incredibly over at the Garden, and the second reason is that I don't think anyone expected Playboy Buddy Rose to give him such a good fight. I'm not even sure Vince thought Rose was going to be quite this good. What made the bout special was that it was more of a wrestling match than a stooge performance. I don't know who gave Buddy the keys to wrestle that night, but Backlund was totally on board with it and the crowd seemed to appreciate it. Interestingly, they couldn't reproduce this performance in Philly. Perhaps the heat made it magical. From memory, the same thing happened with Adonis vs. Backlund, but I need to watch the tapes again. Don't let 'em ever tell you that Bob wasn't over in New York.

Ken Patera vs. Bob Backlund (WWF, 7/26/80) This was a dead rubber match, but lots of fun. I feel it's safe to say that Patera was one of Backlund's best opponents. I've said it before, but I don't particularly care for special guest referees, or referees getting physically involved in a match in any sort of way, but Gorilla Monsoon is winning me over as a guest referee, and I got a kick out of the exchange he had with Patera where he gave me the big clothesline. Ivan Koloff vs. Bruno Sammartino (WWF, 3/26/79) This was during the period where Bruno and Backlund were in separate main events. It was never gonna happen, but I would have loved to have seen a Backlund vs. Bruno match at one of these shows. I'm totally down on Koloff in the WWF and this bout didn't help matters. Bruno over-extended himself as well, and his limitations as a worker were glaringly obvious. I'm sure I reacted to this more negatively than most people would, but I've got issues with Koloff. Before the bout, a babyfaced Ted DiBiase was introduced to the crowd. Bob Backlund vs. Buddy Rose (WWF, 11/25/82) I'm not sure why I chose this bout to watch first. It's a short, workrate sprint where the lumberjacks at ringside do little more than cheerlead. The post-match locker room interview is more interesting than the bout. I love Bob's low key, serious interviews where he talks about the psychology of wrestling. Kal Rudman probing Bob was highly amusing.