ohtani's jacket

I can safely say that the Toronto match is better than the one from Philly. The Philly match didn't strike me as anything special, really. Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude, 4/22/89 This a fun match. Rude hardly got a lick of offence in, but his bumping and selling were great. Unlike Rude vs. Warrior matches from other cities (and a lot of Rude matches in general, I should add), this was wrestled with the intensity befitting a return grudge match. No auto pilot in this one or slow motion offence, and Rude made Warrior's offence look great just like in the Summer Slam match. Incidently, does anyone have a Rude/Roberts match they think is good? There's a ton of them out there, but bad Rude gets on my nerves. Any recommendations?

The 90s lists represented what the consensus was at the time. Even if people had been given tapes to watch, I don't think they would've been as comprehensive as the 80s sets because of the format. VHS limited how much wrestling most of us had seen and would've made it tougher to collect the footage together, so I don't think it could've been handled differently. As far as I recall, the voting wasn't that big a deal. There wasn't a big viewing period like there are for internet polls these days, where everybody watches as much as they can for six months. Looking at the results, they simply need to be redone as opposed to be some kind of failure. The beauty of the 80s sets is that every voter gets the footage. That eliminates the type of ballots where the voter didn't make an effort to track down matches. I don't see the problem in voting for a collection of matches chosen by a committee, since most people are unlikely to have that much footage of a promotion in their possession. I could understand a huge fan of a certain promotion wanting to vote for matches that didn't make the cut, but it's unlikely that anyone else would. It will be interesting to see what people make of the results in ten years time. The results may date (as the 90s results have), but I doubt there will be as many gaps as the 90s poll. I do think they're a bit long, however, which makes it difficult for people to finish the discs and meet the deadline. I can understand why the sets are the length they are, but aside from having fun with the bottom rung of matches I hated, I had a hard time ranking the sixty or so matches that aren't good enough to crack a top 100. I suppose other voters had some of those matches in their top 100, however. The bottom line is that if you asked people to send in a ballot of their top 100 Memphis matches (or however many), you'd get a handful of ballots and some pretty crappy results. It might work for WWF or Crockett, and perhaps for All Japan and New Japan to a lesser extent, but the results would've been more or less what the consensus was five or ten years ago. The irony these days is that there's more footage available than ever before, but viewing has dropped off from where it was when I first came online. People simply aren't going to know about great matches unless there's a pimping and viewing period and all the matches are a click away. The sets deal with that nicely. I remember when the idea of a DVDVR Best of the 80s poll was first floated. It's come a long way from those humble beginnings. I kind of wish the sets were more popular in the sense of a great number of voters, but I guess that can't be helped. Anyway, if I were you I would have no reservations about which is the better way.

Is this better or roughly the same as their 04/22/86 MSG version of the match? It's essentially the same match, with the same beginning and end, but the Maple Leaf Gardens set-up means they can throw each over the barricade and use the ramp area to brawl, which makes the build to the bladejob a lot better than at Madison Square Garden. Savage's missed double axhandle happens later in the match and is arguably a bigger spot in Toronto. The first half of the match is probably better in New York, but the second half of Toronto fits the bill better and feels like more of a No DQ bout. There's also a difference in the way the matches are shot. The finishing stretch, for example, is shot from the front in New York and from the side in Toronto. When they use a front on shot in Toronto (and I'm assuming it's because of the ramp), it's from a far wider angle than in MSG, similar to the type of shot you see in handhelds. The upshot of all this is that the punch exchange, for example, is more interesting, if not better, in Toronto than it is in New York because of the different angle. The crowd seemed hotter in Canada as well. KB8, you can find it in the usual place.

Sgt.Slaughter vs. Iron Sheik, Championship Wrestling 2/25/84 Sgt.Slaughter vs. Iron Sheik, MSG 4/23/84 Sgt.Slaughter vs. Iron Sheik, MSG 5/21/84 People talk about the Boot Camp match, but the rest of this feud is awesome in its own right. The 5/21 match in particular is an awesome spectacle w/ Slaughter doing a killer bladejob and the incredible bloodsoaked promo at the end where Slaughter gets the crowd to plead allegiance to the flag. The post-match brawl after the April match is sweet as well, especially when you have guys saying, "get your fucking ass out of here, Slaughter." Even their appearance on Regis was awesome.

Tito Santana vs. Greg Valentine, 7/15/87 Tito Santana vs. Greg Valentine, 11/26/88 I became a big fan of the Tito Santana/Greg "the Hammer" Valentine feud during the Smarkschoice WWF poll, so I decided to check out some of their matches from a few years later. The match from '87 isn't a particularly meaningful bout, but there's some of the hard hitting action that I remember from their feud for the Intercontinental championship. This was a few months after The Dream Team broke-up and they do that annoying shit where Brutus is on commentary pretending to be at ringside. Brutus was always incredibly shitty at promos (something I was aware of even when I was a kid) and his delivery on commentary isn't any better. Thankfully, it's a short match. The '88 match is much longer and pretty good actually. It's slow and methodical -- it's a Greg Valentine match, after all -- but if you dig both these guys then you'll find something to like about this match. The only real downer is the typically 80s WWF restholds that they do every now and again, but inbetween that is the usual Tito and Greg brawling and many of the same spots from their IC feud. There's also some cool strength spots on the mat, good use of the shin guard angle Greg was doing at the time, and a nice "moon" spot when Greg shows his ass to Madison Square Garden. Not a classic or anything, but it satisfied the itch I had to watch more of their stuff.

Randy Savage vs. Tito Santana (No DQ), 5/4/86 What was up with the Macho Man and Toronto? In any of the good 1980s WWF feuds, there's likely to be one match where it all comes together, and for Tito and Savage this was that match. For long stretches it was as good as anything from the other territories in the 80s. I'm not sure if I liked it as much as Tito vs. Greg, which I think had better Tito performances, but this was extremely well worked for the sort of bout it was. Being a Savage bout, you can't shake the feeling that blocked it all beforehand, but if that allowed him to concentrate on the performance aspects of wrestling then I don't mind if it feels a little scripted. The finish is kind of hollow, but you have to expect that with a tour match and a stip like this. The WWF didn't have a lot of great wrestling in the 80s, but there was definitely enough there to make a nice little collection. Far more than it was ever given credit for in the past.

I also love the Pillman matches and his TV matches with Arn, but the key to those matches is that they're short. I don't think Windham had the tools to wrestle long television matches. Loss' WCW matchlist has 23 Windham singles matches from '92 and '93, and I'd wager that the biggest factors in whether they're good or not are the length and the performance of his opponent. I don't think he was all that great in leading match or being in control. Stuff like the Scorpio match contradicts that, but that was a short, sharp match. A lot of Windham's bouts meander. A few more matches: Steven Regal & Bobby Eaton vs. Johnny B Badd & Marcus Bagwell (Saturday Night 08/05/95) The Blue Bloods were an excellent tag team who unfortunately didn't have a lot of excellent opposition to face, but for some reason I find Mero and Bagwell likeable despite being cheesy as shit. This was nothing special, but it was fun watching Regal and Eaton work. Nasty Boys vs. Southern Boys (Saturday Night 10/06/90) The Nasty Boys were awesome in their brief stint with WCW in 1990. I wasn't sure how these sides would mesh and I was confused when Ross told me to look for the Nasty Boys to dominate on the mat (did he even know how they worked?), but this was a really solid match and a decent tune-up for the Steiners. After the match is a clip of the contract signing, which was cool too. It's a shame we didn't get more of the Nasty Boys in WCW before they jumped to Titan.

Vader & Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas (Main Event 01/03/93) This looked promising on paper, but it was a real cookie cutter match. Which isn't to say it didn't work; I just have no interest in watching contrived Vader matches where Steamboat sells melodramatically. Steven Regal vs. Johnny B Badd (Main Event 10/10/93) I can't remember whether I watched this program for the Smarkschoice poll or not, but this was better than the other matches I've been watching. The thing I like about Mero is that while he may not have been a good worker, he was always trying things. Sometimes it looked bad (like his strange looking armdrags) and sometimes it was out of synch with either his character or the flow of offence in the match, which may have meant that he was over-extending himself in such cases, but you always got the feeling that he trying to make a fist of it. This was a typical time limit draw, but the rhythm was easygoing and Regal used a lot of his best offence (like his kick ass senton.) No problems with this.

Devil had 20 years as a top level worker, which is pretty remarkable by anyone's standards. The only real criticisms I can think of are her her no-selling (which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't), her Super Heel gimmick, and perhaps the last decade of her career, though I'm not sure we should begrudge her that.

I totally forgot about the Plum Mariko/Commando Bolshoi submission match from the 1/15 JWP show. What an awesome undercard match that was. By the same token, I loved the hell out of Kyoko/Takako from the AJW 1/24 show.

I really dug not only this but everything about OZ Academy that year, from the Amano pledging angle to all their matches in GAEA. 1996 was the high point of Ozaki's career, IMO.

Wasn't it something Meltzer said about her when discussing the people on the WON HOF ballot?

Aja was a Dump clone at first. It was something she shed over time, though she never really ditched it completely. But by the same token Dump was a Monster Ripper clone.

Jake Roberts/The Barbarian vs. Ron Simmons/Barry Windham, WCW Saturday Night 9/26/92 Another awful match. Roberts was already starting to look pretty rough by the time he showed up in WCW and his ring work was abysmal. As good as WCW was in 1992, it took a dive in the second half of the year. This got the "skip ahead" treatment and didn't look good at any point. Ricky Steamboat vs. Barry Windham, WCW Saturday Night 1/9/93 God almighty was this boring. There's a thread over at DVDVR where people are trying to say that Windham and Steamboat are universally praised workers; well come over and spin this. If the second half of '92 took a nosedive, then '93 was the beginning of one big long rut. Steamboat and Windham aren't the type to easily mesh in singles, but Barry was the king of the boring ass singles matches and this was yet another example of Steamboat not working to the storyline. This was the semi finals of the number one contender tournament for the US title and Ross was trying to sell it as a grudge match between Windham and Steamboat over what Barry did to Dustin. Could've fooled me because it looked like any old Steamboat or Windham match to me. This also got the skip forward treament and I had the pleasure of watching everyone who was involved in the poorly booked feuds at the time running in to remind us that A is feuding with B.

I'm surprised you didn't include the Rayo/Dantes match on this set. One of the best lucha matches of the 90s (in my opinion, anyway.)

Brian Pillman & Larry Zbyszko vs. Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton, WCW Saturday Night 8/8/92 In theory this should've been awesome since Zbyszko was looking for a measure of revenge and paid for his troubles, but Jesus Christ is this a boring match. One of the worst WCW matches I've ever see. Ross just drones on and on.

Don't you think the Valentine/Backlund draw from 79 is the best WWF match of all time? That doesn't mean they're not a bad idea in general. I think strap matches are a bad idea too, but that didn't stop me from putting Vader/Sting number one on the WCW poll. I really don't think the one hour All Japan and All Japan women matches from this time were good and I don't see how anyone would want to see them go an hour in those styles. In fact, I would argue that they were part of the reason both companies went downhill.

Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes & Ricky Steamboat vs. Greg Valentine, Dick Slater & The Barbarian (Worldwide 08/29/92) Valentine, Slater and The Barbarian, how's that for a trios? This was too short to be anything special, but all six guys are pretty workers so it was fun while it lasted. Would've liked to have seen this get the "Kip Frey" treatment. Ric Flair vs. Bill Irwin, Power Hour 9/29/89 For some reason, I like watching the short TV matches Flair had before jumping to Titan. If you've never seen this, you're not missing much, but this was pretty good as far as this sort of thing goes. The short television match is something of an art form and difficult to do well (sort of like short films in cinema), and there's just enough offence from Irwin to make this work. Flair's stuff doesn't look all that great in this particularly outing but they manage to pack a lot into a short time and give it a decent sort of an arc. The structure was better than the above match. Babyface Flair isn't all that interesting, however.

The last time I watched this I thought it was better than people make out, but that was a long time ago. It doesn't really matter how good it was, however, since it was supposed to be the match of the 90s and they fucked up the whole approach. I've got to call bollocks on there being better one hour matches, though. All of the one hour matches from around this time are wretched. One hour matches are just a bad idea in general.

Lord Steven Regal vs. Terry Taylor, WCW Saturday Night 1/1/94 Quite a decent match this. I'm not overly familiar with Terry Taylor as a worker, so I'm not sure how it relates to his prime, but aside from some awkward moments here and there, it struck me as pretty much a pre-cursor to the Zbyszko match. A nice contrast between Regal's Japanese influenced European style and Taylor's more traditional US style stuff. The finishing stretch was really cool. Barry Windham vs. Steven Regal, Worldwide 4/17/93 I can't remember whether I watched this for the Smarkschoice poll or not, but anyway Regal appeared to be a face here and it was kind of interesting to see him use his European uppercuts and forearm smashes as babyface comebacks instead of heel moves. Barry was the NWA heavyweight champ at this point, so it was essentially a Barry Windham match with him calling it. All in all, they meshed better than I expected. Dick Slater & Dick Murdoch vs. Dustin Rhodes & Robert Gibson, The Main Event 8/11/91) It's too bad the Hard Liners were such a short lived team as that combination of Murdoch and Slater is pretty appealing. This match existed solely for Ricky Morton to do a run-in and attack Robert Gibson, just as so many other WCW matches existed solely for a run-in, but it was pretty fun while it lasted. You can't go past that heel team. Rick & Scott Steiner vs. Arn Anderson & Barry Windham, The Main Event 6/24/90 Same formula as above, minus the run-in which was replaced by some outside interference from Ole. The Horsemen looked good like you'd imagine, but it was one of those matches where it's so cut and dried as a throwaway TV match that your biggest impression of the match is something random (in this case, the size difference between Windham and Rick Steiner.)

I forgot to mention the really odd thing that happened in the 6-man where Funk had a confrontation with a fan who kept saying "punk, punk, punk" over and over again. Weird. The Patriot vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Saturday Night 2/26/94 The Patriot vs. Lord Steven Regal, WCW Main Event 3/20/94 Now THIS is why you do an ongoing WCW thread. The Sat night match is a non-title return match from Patriot's debut, where he took Regal to the television time limit. The cool thing about it is that Regal works it like a New Japan tour match instead of a studio taping. Right from the get go, he's throwing nastier strikes than usual and they work this tight little match that's similar to Regal's matches with Hashimoto (complete with cauliflower-inducing matwork and nose shattering uppercuts.) The Main Event match is nowhere near as good, and Bischoff and Jesse have any ongoing bet that's really distracting, but there's still some quality wrestling on show. The Sat Night match is the one you want to watch, though. Lots of fantastic stuff in that match, from Wilkes as well as Regal.

Cool, I'll check out the Arn/Steamboat match later. Dustin Rhodes/Ricky Steamboat vs.Arn Anderson/Bunkhouse Buck, WCW Main Event 9/4/94 Sting/Rhodes/Steamboat vs. Funk/Anderson/Buck, WCW Main Event 9/11/94 These were disappointing considering they were part of the Studd Stable feud. The first match had an uncharacteristically weak performance from Steamboat and the second match is like watching guys brawl in a Royal Rumble match. Sting & Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson & Bunkhouse Buck, WCW Main Event 11/6/94 This was meaningless filler before the Clash with Dustin vs. Vader and Sting tagging with Hogan for the first time. Completely forgettable.

Inspired by the Forgotten Good Workers/"Hey I Thought This Guy Was Supposed To Suck?" thread and the ghost of the Smarkschoice project. Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson, WCW Main Event 8/28/94 This was an enjoyable teaser for War Games. Dustin came out all bandaged up, looking to lay a beating on Arn. He was on auto pilot a bit, which is something Dustin was prone to doing, but Arn was his usual consummate self. It's amazing how much Arn bothered even on tapings like this. They basically worked they type of match you'd have in the opening two-to-five minutes of a War Games match, though it was a notch or two down on the type of intensity they'd bring to an actual War Games match. After stooging for a while and doing the type of punch drunk selling that rivaled Terry Funk, we got a nice stretch of Arn on offence before the Colonel and Meng got involved. The finish was the usual "order to the PPV" finish, but it did involve Ricky Steamboat trying to scare the heels away with his torch. This was slightly comical, but you've got to love how committed to the cause Steamboat was. If they told him to scare off the heels with the torch, he went and did it. Meng stared down the flame. Probably would've been more badass if he'd swallowed the flame and put it out. Okay for what it was.

Haven't checked in on my favourite mat worker for a while. This may come as a shock, but he's still wrestling Solar. Negro Navarro vs. Solar, Ultimo Dragon Produce, 7/19/10 Negro Navarro vs. Solar, AAA Arena Neza, 1/8/11 It was interesting watching these back-to-back. The Korakuen Hall bout was their typical touring match which we've seen them do in Japan before, while the match from Nezahualcoyotl was a lucha libre title match for the belt Navarro holds. On the surface, it seems like the Arena Neza match is the more serious of the two because it's a title match being wrestled in Mexico, but a closer look at both matches reveals that this is not really the case. In fact, the only real difference between the two is that one is pro shot and the other is a handheld. The crowd has more of a hum about it in Mexico, whereas the Japanese fans are happy to sit back and watch the match and laugh at "chotto matte" jokes, but that doesn't appear to have any impact on how they work the matches. For all intents and purposes, they're the same match. At first glance, the Neza match appears to be all business, but I think that has a lot to do with the uploader editing out the parts where Navarro and Solar play to the crowd. You could maybe argue that there are less holds and that they're held for longer, but the matches basically build to the same finish in exactly the same way. Whether this means they've tweaked their touring match, I'm not sure, but these guys are pretty much tireless when it comes to adding new variations to the holds they work. There was one awesome stretch in the Tokyo match where they started out doing a Dos Caras-like submission, hooked each other on the mat with leglocks around the head, and turned this contortionist act into a Fujiwara-like chinlock submission. Quite the gauntlet. Neither match was what you'd call a traditional lucha libre singles match (with a three fall structure and proper arc), but they did have a throughline (what you'd call the theme of the work, if you were to think about a match in literary terms.) Solar and Navarro are often accused of being "exhibitiony," but I think it's the finishes that hurt them more their tendencies to give up or release a hold. I'm not sure why they keep short-changing us on the finish. There's no reason that I can think of why there can't be a winner. When you finish a match the way they do here (it was a double pin in both matches), you pretty much consign things to the "that was a nice bit of wrestling" basket. It really takes the wind out of a match's sails, because there's no way that you can really say you saw a match, with all the connotations that implies. On the other hand, it's a bit like those maestro tags, where you just have to accept that they're never going to be worked with a satisfying match structure. Unnecessary finishes aside, I enjoyed both these matches. The Nezahualcoyotl match wasn't quite as special as I thought it was before I had the bright idea to compare it to the Korakuen bout (which was very good for a lucha in Japan match, I must add), so that takes it down a few points in terms of the best of 2011, but it really is amazing that these guys are still wrestling at such a high level ten years after they started this junket. Negro Navarro/Black Terry vs El Apache/Angel Mortal, IWRG, 1/9/11 Negro Navarro/Black Terry vs El Apache/Angel Mortal, IWRG, 1/16/11 Speaking of maestro tags, these are the matches that are getting everyone excited in the small lucha indy community on the net. A few years back, maestro tags were the high point of the lucha year because of how difficult it was to get indy footage (think Terry/Navarro vs. Mano Negra/Solar), but with more footage available it's been easier to become critical. Most of the maestro stuff in recent times has struck me as a waste of talent because of the way everyone not named Solar or Negro Navarro is reduced to a passenger, as well as the refusal to swap partners and work a proper match with shifts in momentum, overlapping falls, and all the rest. But these were interpromotional maestro tags; a fact which managed to breathe new life into an old dog. The difference between the first tag and other matches that BTjr has shot is plain to see. One of my biggest complaints about maestro tags (at least the Solar/Navarro ones) is that there's nothing to tie the falls together; no through line to give the matches any sort of focus. The reason for this is that they forgo the traditional lucha structure of overlapping the falls, whereby the momentum from one fall carries over into the next, leading to a turning point in the present fall where momentum shifts back the other way. Since lucha is ultimately a back and forth, 50/50 style of working, this toing and froing helps build overall momentum in the match, leaving it unclear who's going to win heading into the third. In theory, anyway. The through line here was pretty simple -- the worker's competitive instincts boiling over (or however you want to describe it) -- but they executed it fairly well. I wouldn't say it was worthy of excessive praise, but I was pleased that they shifted from Terry/Apache and Navarro/Mortal to Apache/Navarro and Terry/Mortal and back again. There's nothing worse than watching these matches and seeing guys seagull on the apron. The only gripe I had with the way they worked the match was the finish. I'm not the first person to mention this, but it really was stupid. Forgetting for a moment the miscommunication spot between the AAA guys (since there was a revancha instead of them not teaming again), the reason for the aggression in the match was because Navarro was behaving like a bastard gym teacher. Watch how he behaves when he squares off with Apache to start the second caida. Maybe it's just me, but as soon as Apache retaliates to let Navarro know that they can grapple too (essentially), the AAA guys automatically become the technicos to me and not some outside rudos. Terry's comeback was (or rather would have been) a decent finish, but I actually think the AAA guys should've won, which would've added more fuel to the fire and been earnt in my eyes. Still, it didn't really matter because the revancha was awesome. The first fall was a neat "let's forget the last match happened and start again" fall and finishes with a reminder that the last match did happen when Apache and Mortal lose again. The second fall is the lucha equivalent of hitting below the belt in a title fight; well, luchadores do hit below the belt in some title fights, but what I really mean is that there are unwritten laws in lucha about how you work a hold and the parts of the body you target and the AAA guys were purposefully shitty in the second fall. As for the third fall, it was as good as any Terry brawl since I started taking notice of his stuff three or four years ago. Terry's a good mat worker, an excellent mat worker even, but as a brawler he may very well the best of all-time. The only guy who'd give him a run for his money (and I'm talking about in lucha here) would be Sangre Chicana. Other guys have been better at doing the brawling, but it's Terry's selling that sets him apart. Most people who read this blog are going to go ahead and watch this match on youtube anyway (or already have), so I won't go into great detail describing what Terry does, but the whole thing reminded me of the intro to the Lee Van Cleef spaghetti western The Big Gundown. Just an epic piece of violence.

Really? Interesting. So you're not likely to youtube a match that you might have seen people discussing, because it's a one-off? I can see the point. If one jumps from AJPW 1994 to RAW 1994 (or vice versa), it would be a pretty big culture shock. But then once you get used to the flow, you can appreciate better what's happening. The match works better in context of a worker's development or an ongoing angle or a direction the whole company is taking. What I find is that if I youtube something that I haven't watched a lot of in recent times, it tends to annoy the shit out of me. 90s Joshi is a perfect example. I honestly believe that to enjoy Joshi you have to get into the rhythm of how the workers work (the flow of the match, the way they sell, the saving your partner and breaking up pins, the long finishing stretches, etc.) If you haven't watched it for awhile, it's tough to get back into the swing. The end result (for me anyway) is that I end up hating something I might have tolerated had I watched a whole batch of it. Having said that, sometimes tastes change for unknown reasons. I used to always hate Southern tag teams (don't ask me why, I just did), but when we did the WCW poll the Midnight Express etc. finally clicked for me. I can't explain why.