ohtani's jacket

C'mon, Bobby Heenan wasn't a character? Good Ol' JR isn't a character? Lawler? Lance Russell? Kent Walton? Unless you have zero personality you're a character to some extent or another. Jesse could go off on tangents at times, but I agree with a lot of what Jerry wrote. Jesse was awesome and I don't get the disdain. How can people like that dipshit who commentated for All Japan and dislike Jesse? And Rude was definitely a guy you associated with Jesse since he was the winner of the "Body Award." Other guys I immediately associate with Jesse are Hogan, Steamboat and Tito. I don't think Jesse belongs in the Hall but it's perplexing to why people don't think he's good. And what was wrong with Tony? The standard of wrestling commentary was never so high that Tony was poor.

Personally, I like Jesse's WCW work better than his WWF stuff with Jesse and Tony being my favourite WCW pair. The WWF may not have skipped a beat when Jesse left because they had Bobby, but listen to some '93 commentary after they've both left and tell me Jesse wasn't missed. Alternatively, listen to the rancid Bobby/Tony pairing and tell me Jesse was replaceable. Jesse was an awesome part of pro-wrestling from that era. One thing that needs to be taken into account about heel commentators is that Lawler had to gradually move away from a heel colour gig otherwise people would have gotten sick of him. Plus it didn't really fit the attitude era of shades of gray. Another thing I wanted to point out is that it's bullshit that Walton didn't bury workers or matches. He did it all the time. He also made uncomfortable racial comments especially when Kwango wrestled, but I think that was more a byproduct of the times. Walton was an easy one to get in because voters can watch one or two WoS matches and think he's worthy. Getting guys like McManus and Pallo and Kellet in is going to be much tougher.

Yes. I'm not saying every single person who should be in is already in. I am saying that it seems like we've crossed a threshold of inducting obvious people, and now we're just arguing almost entirely about borderline candidates. When that happens, does it mean less to be in the HOF? Wrestling has happened less and the system has produced less stars in the last decade than in any other 10 year period ever. Hans Schmidt should probably be in. John Cena should probably be in. The Rock & Roll Express should probably be in. Jerry Jarrett should probably be in. I'm sure there are others as well. But we seem out of slam dunk picks after Cena goes in this year. If, from here, keeping the HOF open means someone is just going to get in every year, then I think the HOF will weaken over time and in a decade, we'll be inducting anyone who ever had a modicum of stardom. A HOF needs an industry that continues to churn out worthwhile candidates to stay relevant. That isn't happening. Therefore, the concept feels self-serving now. We induct people every year because someone has to go in, not because there are still dozens of worthwhile people to induct (without lowering the bar). While I don't think anyone is arguing candidates that they don't think deserve to go in, I do think most of the people being argued now would not be argued if the system were still producing stronger picks. It just seems like it's run its course. There are Mexican and British wrestlers who deserve to go in but never will because of the stupid voting system.

What's next? Sean Mooney? Danny Davis? Earl and Dave Hebner? Mr. Fuji?

It was pretty much a squash from the beginning, I thought. Iron Eagle seemed okay to me. It takes all sorts to make the wrestling world go round.

BTW, the Horsemen vs. Armstrong/Horner/Allen Iron Eagle six-man from the following week is a fun match with Eagle & Co. eating some big offense.

That tag was all right. The body of the match with Arn, Windham and Armstrong is good, but Horner sucks. Didn't really strike me as anything special and no-one gave a top draw performance, but I guess you need to watch it in context albeit while torturing yourself. Did you watch the Bobby Eaton/Scott Steiner part of the guantlet? I loved that match so much I think I voted for it in the Smarkschoice poll as a quirk.

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #32 -- The Earthquake I used to dig using Earthquake in WrestleFest, but that's about the only thing I dig about Tenta. This turned into a schmoz involving Earthquake, Tugboat, Dino Bravo and Hacksaw Jim Duggan, which is a pretty sad indictment of where Tito was at by this point. TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #33 -- "The North-South Connection" Dick Murcoch & Adrian Adonis This was really weak. I can't stand these WWF face-in-peril matches that are half the length of a Southern tag. Rocky Johnson was Tito's partner. TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #34 -- "The World's Strongest Man" Dino Bravo This was surprising good considering it was Dino Bravo. Of course they didn't really do much of anything, but still it's Dino Bravo. I wonder if Bravo wasn't as bad as I remember or if I'm just going soft. The finish was weird as Dino caught him clean off the ropes with the sidewalk slam. Kind of anti-climatic.

Satanico, El Dandy, Fujiwara, Jumbo and Bull Nakano strike me as better than Bobby Eaton in 1990 (to name five), but I guess it's open to debate.

Arn smokes Eaton as far as I'm concerned, but I'd like to know if 20+ years later anyone would really consider Eaton to have been top five in the world.

I don't agree with a straight up fourth year comparison. Kyoko, Takako and Yoshida were from the same class but the Inoues were pushed before her with Kyoko getting the early push that was meant for Takako. Hase's push began in '87. His juniors career would make a better comparison. Because of Yoshida's knee injury, you could limit it to Hase's '88 against Yoshida's '92.

I wanted to compare Takada to another flakey ass wrestler and the Shawn Michaels comparison amused me. It's a bit unfair on Michaels, tho. I still think you're overstating Yoshida's 92 and I don't agree that she was better than Toyota or Yamada, but accepting all that, how does it put Yoshida on the level of Hase? If, for argument's sake, we define Hase's peak as his shift into the heavyweight ranks then surely the comparable period is either his OE period (overseas experience) or his early juniors work. I'm not trying to be snarky here. Objectively speaking, his experience level was far above Yoshida's. To say a midcard Joshi worker was better than one of the better heavyweights in Japan is a bit extreme. She may have been more fun to watch for a Joshi fan, but if you said that Kyoko was better than Hase then that's something I could buy. To me, Yoshida was below Takako's '93 and I don't know if you could argue for Takako's '93 as being anything more than underrated. There's a bunch of 80s Joshi midcard workers who were comparable to '92 Yoshida. I don't see how she hit such great heights but I guess I'm not a huge fan.

You could probably argue that 2006 was the peak of Finlay's American work, but I think Finlay is similar to Negro Navarro in that his best work has come long after his physical prime. Early WoS Finlay is awesome, but as soon as he hooked up with Princess Paula it took a nose dive.

That's some rampant Yoshida fanboyism right now. She was put in lengthy matches in '92 with other midcard girls to raise their stature and get them over. She did a good job in those matches, but she wasn't on the level of a Toyota or Yamada in the hierarchy or as a worker. She was carried by Kyoko otherwise they would have had better matches. None of Yoshida's matches that year were great; they're worth watching because they were nice matches that filled in the year and gave a decent picture of what was happening on the rest of the card. After ARSION changed direction, her best match was another shoot style bout against Megumi Fujii. There's no need to compare her with the Shawn Michaels of Japanese wrestling, however.

This is a difficult question to answer as there isn't enough footage for most of my favourite workers, but Tenryu, Austin and Hart strike me as guys who were pretty average pre-peak. A lot of AJW workers got good early, perhaps as a result of mandatory retirement but more likely due to training and background.

Yoshida wasn't a superb worker in '92. She was a promising youngster who had good matches with her peers and was carried by Kyoko in the JGP. Yoshida was great for about 18 months while working a style that her company ultimately dropped. I'd take Hase's career output over that if I were even the teeniest bit interested in New Japan.

There's no way that Yoshida's AJW work is as good as Hase's peak. I don't even like Hase and I think that's a crazy statement.

Kawada was meant to be the heel and Misawa the face, at least in the early part of their feud.

So are Misawa and Kawada. See, that's the problem. US-style rasslin'/sports entertainment is your only frame of reference, and you're acting like anything outside of that doesn't exist. It's kind of like saying that film is inherently limited as an art form and only talking about Hollywood blockbusters. What makes you think Misawa and Kawada were morally neutral?

Why should it be? Last year, the All Blacks entered the Rugby World Cup with the expectation that they'd win it for the first time since 1987. They not only faced the pressure of winning the Cup at home, but winning it for a country that had suffered a coal mining disaster, a major oil spill and an earthquake that destroyed a city and is approaching its 10,000th aftershock. A couple of matches into the tournament, their star player and rugby equivalent of a quarterback tore his groin in training and was ruled out of the Cup. Then it came out that the captain and greatest player of his generation had a foot injury that was so bad that he couldn't train. For four years, the opposition had taunted us that if one or either of these players went down we'd be fucked even if we were playing at home. It was basically a nightmare come true. There was no real replacement for the star pivot who injured himself in training so we had to rely on a young guy who had spent most of the season recovering from a broken jaw. So what happens? Groin injury in the quarters. Next off the rank was a third choice pivot who'd been on holiday before his call-up. World Cup final, thirty minutes in and he goes down with a knee injury. On comes the fourth choice pivot, the man nobody wanted to see play for the All Blacks again because his poor decision making had cost us games in the past and who a week before had missed his call-up because he was out fishing. Suddenly, you've got the most hated player in recent All Black history vying for redemption in arguably the most important game in All Black history. He kicks a penalty goal (just barely) and the All Blacks take an 8-0 lead into half time. Shortly after the break, France score a try and it's 8-7. The All Blacks hold onto a one point lead and for thirty two minutes they have to defend it with the captain on one leg and one kick in penalty range being the difference between four more years of misery or finally getting this gorilla off our backs. It was an eternity and I hated every second of it, but we wore down the clock, kicked the ball out and ended twenty years of heartbreak. That's the type of thing that inspires a movie not wrestling. It's like the film Clint Eastwood made about South Africa's victory in '95. It doesn't translate to wrestling and even as a movie it doesn't compare to the real thing. We all have our favourite angles and feuds and storylines in wrestling which are nowhere near this scope but well executed and fun to watch. Wrestling doesn't have to be like the All Blacks' World Cup victory to be good and it's debatable whether you can book something like that. The more complex the WWE try to make a story the more cringeworthy it seems. They should be telling wrestling stories not stories from film, television or sport.

Narrative is even more over the top in England than it is in the US. Rooney's issues with ManU in the 2010/2011 season were hyped well beyond their equiv in the US (Melo wanting out of Denver). Add in his injury issues the year before, his performance at the World Cup, his horrid start to the season... It was huge. My thought would be for folks to watch Sky Sports News, which is even more sensationalistic than a norm SportsCenter over here... and we're not even seeing the half of it since we're only seeing Sky's "news" program, not their shows wrapping around the soccer games which are extremely critical in terms of narrative and storyline. Wayne Rooney's issues with United weren't the equivalent of Carmelo Anthony wanting out of Denver. Carmelo wanting out of Denver wasn't a pimple on the ass of Wayne Rooney's issues with United. Rooney, if he'd stuck to his guns and not signed a five year deal two days after signalling his intent to leave, would've been as big a story as Lebron James; it wasn't. There's no way that Sky Sports News is more sensationalistic than SportsCenter. The tabloid press generate plenty of scandal and controversy in the UK but it's chicken feed compared to US stories. Was there a story in British sport last year as big as the Miami and Penn State? Is there anything in the UK that's hyped to the extent that the Super Bowl or the World Series are? The UK struggles to generate the amount of stories that the US produces on a daily basis.

In fairness to Jerry, narrative in overseas sports is far less pervasive than it is in American sport. It obviously exists but it's far more conservative than in America where the hype goes up to eleven.

Black Terry/Negro Navarro vs. Trauma I/Trauma II, LUCHA POP 8/27/11 This was a fairly typical match between these workers. It was bare bones in terms of layout and structure; Navarro dominated, Terry played second fiddle, and yet it was still pretty good. When Black Terry Jr's videos first started appearing it was Trauma II who showed the most potential among Dinastía Navarro, but for the past year or so Trauma I has been beastly. I don't know if he's overtaken Trauma II, but it sure looks that way. Mind you, everyone gets relegated to secondary status when Negro Navarro is in the ring. That's what happened to Terry & Trauma II, who worked the usual "my turn/your turn" pattern. The selling was decent, but Terry's a stronger character than Navarro and I don't really like seeing him in this environment. Sure he can work holds, but his forte are those Terribles Cerebros brawls where he does his best character work. Here Terry and Trauma II spent most of their time trying to hook each other, but it's obvious who's hookin' who if you keep taking turns. Not only that, but they always manage to go too long. I don't know if I've ever seen a Terry/Trauma exchange that ended on an upbeat. Navarro vs. Trauma I was outstanding, however. They worked this tiny little story where Trauma slapped the old man, and talk about teaching your boy a lesson. Trauma did a fantastic job of screaming basically, as Navarro taught his ever-improving son that he still doesn't know squat. Trauma I vs. Navarro has tremendous potential as the younger Trauma has the size to fight back against his old man, whereas big brother would have to work from underneath and probably get mauled. Navarro eased up on his boy after the armlock and ended up giving him the bout, but the signs were there that Navarro vs. Trauma could develop into one of wrestling's better match-ups. Here's hoping they wrestle each other more often than Navarro and Terry do.

Clearly, some of you guys didn't get your free gift.

Care to expand upon this? Because I don't think this is a great match at all and I really appreciated the way you got me to rethink Psicosis/Santo and even Dandy/Casas.