ohtani's jacket

I don't think RINGS was a flashy promotion at all. Some of the matwork and exchanges may have been slick, but that has more to do with the workers' skills than the intent behind the promotion. UWF-I was far more manipulative with their points system, was more suplex and strike heavy, used pro-style gimmicks like tag matches, had Anjoh and Takada go around mouthing off and cutting promos on other companies, and was 100% style over substance. Nobuhiko Takada is the poster boy for style over substance. There weren't any 30 minute Tamura/Kosaka chess battles in UWF-I. The fact that they worked with New Japan and WAR says it all, but ideologically they had split from the founding ideas of UWF a long time before that. I don't really see much difference between UWF-I and Hustle in terms of motive.

My iphone gave passe a diacritical mark. I think a lot of the 90s workrate styles are passe amongst viewers in 2011. I suppose all styles are dated in a sense. Perhaps I should have used the term "not in favour" in some thing like that. I think it's pretty clear which styles are out of favour with people at the moment. It doesn't mean they're out of favour with everyone or that there aren't people who think independently of whatever the subculture within a subculture within a subculture say, but things have definitely changed. If you look at the stuff that's no longer popular, whether it's 90s Joshi, AAA, Super J Cup, UWF-I or any other former boom, they all share a common element and that's that they were flashy styles. Wrestling fans tend to fall into two categories these days: hardcore fans who prefer substance over style and long time fans who don't have any qualms about pimping what they like. Hence why you're just as likely to get pimping of Demolition and New Generation WWF as you are IWRG or Fu-ten, to name drop a few of the better stuff around. In the past, there was very much a workrate ideal when it came to wrestling. Not everybody was interested in only 4-5 star matches, but that culture was very strong. Interest in workrate styles thrived in that era, and I think what you're seeing now with guys preferring more minimalistic stuff is in some ways a backlash against that era. It's also a reaction to the current product, which, in trying to up the ante from the 90s workrate styles (or, in truth, find their own identity) became more ridiculous than even the most workrate driven stuff of the 90s. As for who I'm talking about, I'm mainly referring to the type of person who will watch a large cross section of stuff based on recommendations or threads about matches. I'll call these people the "dabblers", since they'll dabble in mostly anything if it's interesting. I do not see a lot of positive things from these people about older workrate wrestling. M-Pro is probably the only workrate style they like, and to illustrate how fickle and meaningless all this is (but engaging because its the type of stuff that keeps many of us interested), I'd argue that M-Pro is only well received because it fell over the radar for a number of years and the time is right for a revival. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that in ten years time people will be "rediscovering" 90s Joshi, etc., but really my point is that if I think about what I thought was a good match 10-15 years ago, my tastes have changed significantly. Loss may have been talking about common elements of great wrestling throughout the decades and how the basics don't really change, but I think that's a little different to reception and the "text" that we turn wrestling matches into (for want of a better word.)

I kind of get where Dave is coming from. From a historical point of view, the fact that Toyota's style is passé these days shouldn't really have an effect on her GOAT candidacy. You could actually argue that her style isn't dated at all, but that contrary to what Loss is saying, opinion on what makes a good worker/wrestling match has changed dramatically. Unless you want to argue that fundamentally she wasn't any good, which I think is unfair. I dislike Takada immensely, but there were stll things he was capable of. He just sucked on the mat.

I don't think Tamura/Kosaka gets as much play as it used to which doesn't help his rep. I don't buy the body of work argument for shoot style but at the same time it's unfair to favour Kosaka because of how far the style had progressed when he hit the scene. Speaking of Kosaka, what's up with Sherdog counting his works in his MMA record?

I see this, but I also worry that the end result is that it bleeds over into opinions about the wrestlers themselves. Jumbo and Kawada being talked about in a GOAT context may bore you, but I think allowing that to limit their case is unfair. It's not any wrestler's fault how much they're talked about years later. And new opinions aren't always better opinions. They are more interesting to read sometimes, but that's a statement about a message board poster, not a wrestler. I think it's important to not let emphasis on being original impact matches or wrestlers themselves. I completely agree with you, but it takes a broad minded person to not say, "forget all that old sh-t, this is the real stuff." It kind of reminds me of when you're a kid and the first records you buy are top of the pops stuff. Later on, you get your first rock album -- maybe something your older brother listened to or something the older kids at school are into -- and by the time you're at college you're into all sorts of obscure stuff. I don't know what comes after that, but maybe a lot of us are in our college phase of wrestling viewing. I don't know that I understand what this means. Less important to whom? What I meant is that there used to be a lot of generally accepted ideas about wrestling. For example, the AJPW heavies were better than the NJPW heavies, the best thing about New Japan was the juniors, and so on. People read this stuff, bought the tapes and more or less formed the same opinions. There were arguments and what have you, but for the most part the lay of the land was clear. This is going to sound kind of cringe worthy, but these opinions were important for becoming not smart as such but for knowing about things like Japanese pro-wrestling or Lucha or even older American wrestling. It was an education in a type of way, and for some people almost a rite of passage. Others may not remember it that way, but my memories of first discovering wrestling discussion on the internet was that you were either a WWF fan or a WCW fan and you hoped like hell that one would beat the other in the ratings every Tues morning. Then when you finally got tired of that, you "converted" to some alternative form of wrestling and wound up being accused of being an elitist or something worse. I don't really think this culture exists anymore. Perhaps it does and I'm just not aware of it, but I don't think there are guys trying to learn every bit of backstory that went into 6/3/94 or 6/9/95 anymore. It doesn't really matter what's been said about those matches in the past and you don't really see a lot of people throwing up reviews of that sort of stuff anymore. I've mentioned this many times before, but the growth of the internet has really changed the way people discuss wrestling. "What are you watching" threads have more or less replaced the internet review site, and the more disposable wrestling becomes the less discussion there is. It seems to me that people who used to buy tapes did so to join a community where they spoke about those tapes, but now there's a bit of a click/play phenomenon going on. Whereas lack of knowledge used to be a barrier, now there are no barriers. It doesn't really matter what the consensus is because people don't have to make difficult choices about what to watch/buy. The way the various YES/NO threads operate is an example of what I mean. Once upon a time, people would be making choices about what to buy based on the yeses. Nowdays people have no qualms about voting yes or no based on how they feel not what the consensus is or what they've read about the match. That's my impression, anyway. It used to be that Herb Kunze was your gateway to Japanese wrestling, one of Dean's reviews in DVDVR could sell a bunch of tapes or you were in awe of guys with big tape collections. Now Phil says something is awesome and we scurry off to youtube to see where he found it. I don't know how to describe it, but it feels like a different exchange of ideas.

Atlantis vs. La Fiera, NWA World Middleweight Championship, 4/3/92 It's weird watching a match where one of the participants gets stabbed to death years later but that's wrestling I guess. I'm not going to eulogise La Fiera too much, but he was part of that generation of luchadores who debut in the late 70s and ushered in a more contemporary style of lucha libre. By the time the 90s rolled around, his body was already showing the effects of that new working style, but he managed to make the transition into "seasoned vet" and remained a useful player. He also stuck with CMLL when everyone jumped to AAA, which protected his spot somewhat, partly out of loyalty and partly out of necessity. This match was somewhere between the Fiera of old and the seasoned vet, and probably a good example of how you manage a pro-wrestling career (Atlantis) and how you don't (Fiera); but let's just concentrate on the match. Atlantis was in his absolute prime here. Much like "real" athletes, wrestlers only have two or three years where they're at their true peak. They may be good workers either side of that peak, but if you look back in retrospect there's a clear crest. The first fall here was among Atlantis' career best. One of the things that people complain about when it comes to lucha is the length of the opening falls, which are almost always too short for people used to other styles of wrestling. By and large the third fall is the one that counts, but as I've documented many times in this blog, the workers have choices about what they can do in the first, second and third falls. Here, they worked in essence a "mini match" in the primera caida. From the lock-up to the break, and the matwork and submissions to the standing exchanges, there was a clear arc between the opening bell and Atlantis winning fall. I'm not sure what the heat between Atlantis and Fiera was, but the part where Atlantis ignored Fiera's handshake and used it as a takedown instead was boss. There was an edge to their lock-up work and it continued in a competitive vein on the mat with great side headlocks from Atlantis and niggly counters from Fiera. The side headlock for all its simplicity is an amazingly visceral move when done correctly and this would be exhibit A in how to make it look good. The finish saw them return to their feet, which is something that drives me up the wall about the NWA style matwork that influenced this match, but this was about as natural a transition from matwork to standing exchanges as you'll ever see. Fiera scored a rope break off a nice counter-reversal from Atlantis and the match was reset. Atlantis positioned himself for the lock-up, but was caught by surprise by a kick to the gut and whipped into the corner. This set-up the chain of events which led to the finish, and while it may seem rather elementary when I type it up, rarely do you see workers link the matwork and the stand-up exchanges together like that. Nine times out of ten, they simply release the hold, back-off and reset the match with a whip into the ropes. Here, it seemed like Fiera seized an opportunity to change tack, which had the added effect of making it seem like Fiera was thinking about the win and not simply going through the motions of a typical primera caida. Unfortunately for him, Atlantis was stellar on his feet and reeled off a sequence of offence that was good enough to be the finish to the entire match. This ended up being a problem later in the match, but more on that in a bit. The first fall was a cracker as far as first falls go in lucha. The second fall was designed for Fiera to hit back straight away, but was entertaining all the same. Atlantis continued to have the upper exchange in the standing exchanges, which was a nice bit of overlapping from the first fall, and Fiera wasn't getting much purchase with his signature kicks (which were noticeably lower than in his prime; something us aging guys can sympathise with.) Fiera's opening here wasn't quite as strong as in the first fall as he did the over top rope bump that Pirata Morgan and Emilio Charles Jr. were fond of but didn't sell it to any great extent. Back in the ring, he finally clipped Atlantis with one of his kicks and that was the set-up for a massive swan dive plancha that they replayed over and over again. This was an unnaturally big finish for a second fall, which left me wondering how they were going to top things in the final caida, but there certainly wasn't any short changing of the fans in falls one and two. Unfortunately, they weren't able to top their efforts in the final caida. Ironically, it may have been a case that the first two falls had too much action. Traditionally, the reason why the first two falls are short in lucha is because the third fall is supposed to be a big 50/50 fall where the winner takes all and both guys come desperately close to winning on numerous occasions. This can stretch believability at times because the pinfalls and submissions often come simply in the opening caidas and take a superhuman effort in the finale, but the basic idea is that the jeopardy increases and the tension and drama escalates. If you pack too much into the first two falls, it's like a movie that runs out of story or a record release that has great singles put not enough songs to make an album. Fiera slowed the match to a crawl by working over Atlantis' arm, which was an understandable strategy, but completely out of place in a tercera caida where the action should flow back and forth. Atlantis sold it well, but it really needed to start in the segunda caida (as Fiera's avenue back into the match) to have any dramatic effect. The idea was that Atlantis would get heat for fighting off Fiera, but they needed to establish it as more of a turning point, i.e. Atlantis is in control of the match until Fiera injures him. It was an odd fall, really, as they both wanted to put the match over but didn't give themselves a hell of a lot to do. The finishing stretch and everything leading into it was pretty lacklustre. I don't know if they ran out of steam or if they were just out of synch at the end, but it didn't do the match any favours. My take on it is that they got the order of the spots wrong, which hurt the progression of the match. They should've split the armwork over two falls and saved the big plancha for later in the match where it would have more impact. It's strange that two guys as experienced as this would falter like they do, but there's no denying the match falls flat. It's still worth watching even if it isn't perfect; you just have to downgrade what was a pretty promising match.

Atlantis/Fiera is my next review if I ever get around to finishing it. There's a Dandy/Bestia title match that Loss will probably want to include as well.

Don't forget the minis 1/7/97 CMLL: Cicloncito Ramirez vs Damiancito El Guerrero (CMLL Mini?s Title) - Arena Coliseo 10/3/97 CMLL: Bracito De Oro/Cicloncito Ramirez/Mascarita Magica vs Damiancito El Guerrero/El Fierito/Pierrothito - Arena Mexico Two of the greatest matches ever, for sure. Blue Panther vs. Atlantis, La Copa Victoria final, CMLL 12/5/97 Outstanding mat-based match. El Hijo Del Santo, Scorpio Jr. y Dr. Wagner vs. Negro Casas, El Fiero y Ultimo Dragon (CMLL 6/6/97) El Hijo Del Santo, Scorpio Jr. y Dr. Wagner vs. Negro Casas, El Fiero y Ultimo Dragon (CMLL 6/13/97) El Hijo Del Santo, Emilio Charles y Dr. Wagner vs. Negro Casas, Felino, Ultimo Dragon (CMLL 6/20/97) El Hijo del Santo vs. Felino (CMLL 7/4/97) Great TV and a hot angle. Hands down my favourite Santo/Felino match.

Regarding CMLL, don't forget this one: 2/14/92 CMLL: Huracan Sevilla vs Bestia Salvaje (Hair vs Hair) - Arena Mexico This is a fantastic match where a lot of people haven't seen. You might want to take a look at the trios surrounding Dandy vs. Casas as well as they really add to the match. And you need to find some match that shows how great Pierroth was that year. There's a great Sangre Chicana/Pero Aguayo hair match from '92 CMLL as well.

Regarding Joshi, outside of the well known matches I think these are easy to overlook: 11/02/92 - Malenko & Hasegawa vs. Toyota & Yamada (TLTB) 12/13/92 - Kong & K. Inoue vs. Toyota & Yamada (TLTB Final) TLTB matches -- big yearly tag tournament, which along with the JGP singles tournament was an important event for AJW. The first match isn't essential but it was a good league match that Coey discovered when he went back through all this stuff. The final was his baby as no-one had ever pimped it before and it was his discovery. 04/29/92 - T. Inoue vs. Yoshida (All Japan Singles) 07/05/92 - K. Inoue vs. Yoshida (JGP Blue) 08/30/92 - Yoshida vs. Toyota These are only three star matches or what have you, but later on Yoshida will be featured in the '99 yearbook and I think it gives some kind of context as to what was happening further down the card. Joshi is a bit unique in the sense that its fans often watched the entire cards instead of the pimped main events and thus people tend to be fans of the midcarders. JWP wasn't very good in 1992. There was an interpromotional tag that used to be pimped, but I don't think it's very good. I like some of the Ozaki/Kansai singles matches but I can't see anyone else digging them too much. Jerome wrote a really great rundown of 1992 Joshi once including some of the better JWP matches that year.

I don't really think this is a pressing concern for people anymore. I can't imagine people ever getting as involved in a topic like this as they may have done in the past. If you asked people now who they thought the greatest of all-time were, you'd get a bunch of new choices from folk who like "digging in the crates" for new stuff and standard answers from folks who've either stopped watching or only watch a bit. I agree with MJH. I don't think there's all that many people pushing the names you've mentioned. Jerome's fretting about people being anti-Takada, but that amounts to all of four or five people. Speaking for myself, finding new workers is the only thing that keeps me interested in wrestling and seeing any list of great workers with names like Jumbo or Kawada instantly bores me. This tends to influence my own wrestling opinions a lot, but it can'be helped. New is better for me, and revised opinions are paramount. Personally, I'd like things to go further. I'd love for there to be a great overall of the thinking about lucha, for example, but I can't see it happening. All told, I think wrestling opinions are becoming less and less important.

Assuming they have a gay fanbase, that's hardly surprising considering it's marketed to Japanese women in their twenties. The whole idea is stolen from Johnny's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_%26_Associates), and I assume those guys have their share of gay fans too.

Wrestling isn't marketed in Japan with gay overtones and porn for the most part is socially acceptable anyway.

Dustin Rhodes in a golden bodysuit portraying a glamourous manipulative sex-freak with a tiny female with huge boobs smoking a cigar at his side. It sounds so much better decontructed than it was on screen. All I can remember is Goldust boring the shit out of me.

Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs. Apolo Dantes, CMLL 5/31/96 -- epic Rayo match (Rayo being a guy who busts out a big match about once a year like most other Mexican heavyweights.) Probably Dantes' best match as well, as his selling is the perfect foil for Rayo's big match offence. Was part of the abandoned DVDVR Lucha March Madness tournament. Mascarita Magica vs. Damiancito El Guerrero (CMLL Minis Title), CMLL 2/27/96 -- not the best minis match from this era (those come in '97), but worth considering for the fact that the majority of people are oblivious to how good the Mexican minis are. Mayumi Ozaki vs. Hiromi Yagi, JWP 3/3/96 -- lengthy television match between Ozaki and one of the most promising workers of the 90s Hiromi Yagi. Quite long so probably has more flaws than I remember, but this along with the Amano pledging angle before and afterwards give more light to what Ozaki was doing in 1996. Personally, I think she was one of the more interesting workers that year. There's a bunch of ***-*** 1/2 star OZ Academy matches split between JWP and GAEA but I can't remember which one stands out enough to encapsulate them all. Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Kazushi Sakuraba, UWF-i 5/27/96 -- I hate UWF-i like there's no tomorrow, but IIRC this is Tamura's final match before giving them the big finger. He was toying with the idea of heading to Pancrase and you can see how heavily influenced both these guys were by what was happening with that fed. Really beautiful matwork in this match.

I don't understand why people like the Goldust gimmick so much.

All of these matches from Bihari's list need to be on the set: 1/13/91 UWA: El Hijo Del Santo vs Brazo De Oro (Mask vs Hair) - El Toreo De Naucalpan 2/8/91 CMLL: Kato Kung Lee/Super Astro/Volador vs Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/El Brazo - Arena Coliseo 5/3/91 CMLL: El Dandy/Popitekus/Super Astro vs Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/El Brazo - Arena Coliseo 5/17/91 CMLL: Atlantis/Mascara Sagrada/Octagon vs Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/El Brazo (Mexican National Trios Titles) - Arena Coliseo 5/17/91 WWA: El Hijo Del Santo vs Negro Casas (UWA Welterweight Title) - Auditorio De Tijuana 7/26/91 CMLL: Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/El Brazo vs Chavo Guerrero/Eddy Guerrero/Mando Guerrero - Arena Coliseo 8/9/91 CMLL: Atlantis vs Blue Panther (NWA Middleweight Title) - Arena Mexico 11/1/91 CMLL: Octagon vs Fuerza Guerrera - Arena Coliseo 11/22/91 CMLL: Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/El Brazo vs MS-1/Pirata Morgan/Satanico (CMLL Trios Titles) - Arena Mexico There's also this match which tomk used to pimp -- El Dandy/Apolo Dantes/Black Magic (Norman Smiley) vs. Javier Cruz/Pierroth Jr./Blue Panther, 8/18/91 And please, please, please do not forget the mother of all lucha matches -- Trio Fantasia vs. Thundercats, (Masks vs. Masks), 12/8/91 Everything else fits into the interesting for lucha fans category, but you might be tempted to include some of the stuff that was going on at the top of the card which mostly involved Konnan, Pero and Caras.

I spoke to Jose about this years ago and he couldn't shed much light on it, either. Santo was only really a rudo in Arena Mexico and a technico everywhere else, and he never really embraced "rudoism." It was more a case that he was on the opposite side because of his hatred for Casas but even that wasn't expressed very well in the ring. As the feud continues, Casas and Felino behave like rudos half the time and Santo hardly ever gets along with Bestia or Scorpio whose out and out "rudoism" bothers him. He never really turned all the way despite how long he stayed on the rudo side, which is interesting considering how drawn out his technico turn was. As far as this match goes, they probably ran it too soon after the trios matches.

No, but I have heard good things about it. I would be interested in seeing other clean, straightforward matches like this, even ones that aren't as good as this one. I know the '94 match has been praised, but I would imagine there are some other good matches like this on week-to-week TV, right? They don't just do mat-based matches every couple of years like this, do they? Almost all lucha title matches in this era were mat-based, but we're restricted by what made TV. Not all of the TV from the 90s is available and sometimes title matches are clipped. Still, there's a fair few that can be included on future sets.

The Santo heel turn was a confusing piece of booking. It wasn't really a heel turn in the Hogan sense so you can't think about it like that. It'll drive you nuts if you try to think about it in those terms. The whole thing is extremely overrated as an angle, though it did produce some excellent matches in the summer of '97. I assume the reason they booked a triangle match was because they'd already run Casas vs. Santo at the Anniversary show in September and wanted to save the hair vs. mask match for the following year.

Don't get me wrong, I love this fight and think Meltzer's comments are probably closer to the truth than not. It just stuck out like a sore thumb when I was scanning through Loss' match rankings.

Why did you include a shoot on the set?

I still think this is one of the all-time great promos. I thought the loose cannon stuff sucked in WCW but this was like the Richard Pryor live and uncut version.

Jake Roberts vs. Ricky Steamboat, MSG 5/19/86 Jake Roberts vs. Ricky Steamboat, Spectrum 5/31/86 I forgot that Steamboat's original WWF theme was Sirius. That's such a kick-ass theme for the intro to a grudge match. Steamboat looks AWESOME waiting for Roberts in MSG. These are essentially the same match with the same ref spots and the same finish. The Spectrum match is a bit longer for no other reason than it's slower than the MSG match, but the brawling looks a thousand times better than MSG because of the camera set-ups. One of the things I noticed when we did the WWF poll over at Smarkschoice was how shitty the MSG camera work was, but here it makes Steamboat look like a woman. Everybody knows that you have to shoot punches and most other contact in wrestling from an angle that hides the daylight, but it seems as though the MSG guys didn't know how to shoot wrestling. It's a shame really because MSG usually had better heat than Philly. Neither match is great, but fun in a continuation of the feud kind of way. They have a pull apart at the end where they keep doing Lou Thesz press takedowns and punching each other while midcard acts coming running out to separate them. That reminds me of how excited I used to be when people came running out to help. There was always that anticipation of "Who's it gonna be? Who's it gonna be?"