ohtani's jacket

Santo has a formula. It's a good formula, though, and it works. No matter how many times I watch a Santo match, I'm still awestruck by his signature spots. I think the other thing that adds to his mystique is that like an old-school territory attraction, he never really sticks around long enough to wear out his welcome. He'd disappear from CMLL TV then show up again and immediately prop up the match quality. And when he wasn't on CMLL TV, you had to rely on whatever footage you could find of him from the smaller Mexican promotions or overseas. Casas was a genius performer. I think he's a better worker than Santo when it comes to performing. Santo is a better worker technically. That said, Casas wasn't in the same boat as Santo in terms of being a masked luchador and carrying the heavyweight legacy probably in the history of wrestling. Peak Casas is an experience to behold. People went over the top with the hypebole for him in the early 2010s about being the best worker in the world for every year of his career. I'm in the mid-00s right now and he pretty much only shines when he's Santo's tag partner. I love Fuerza, but I can't see him as a top 5 guy. He did some great stuff but it was within the Pena camp and that was never my favorite style. Great comedy, though. I also think Virus is on the outside looking in, but there are a few matches I haven't watched yet. His best trios stuff was pure workrate lucha, as far as I recall. Dandy isn't championed as much as he was two decades ago. I guess two amazing prime years aren't really enough of a case. He did have some decent stuff post-prime, but you have to sift through a lot of mediocre stuff to find it. All of that 1990 stuff was new to us at the time. ironically, I was never much of a source for anything, but I did help unearth the matches against Pirata Morgan and the hair match against Emilio. Atlantis is a great tecnico worker, and in my opinion, the best tecnico trios match worker of all-time, but I've been watching his heel run lately, and it's not good. I'm not sure how good of a worker you are if you can't play the rudo role convincingly, especially after facing so many greats over the years. I guess the top three are Santo, Casas and Satanico. Satanico has his weaknesses too, but I think he's better than anyone else on the list in terms of available footage.

There are less than 40 countries that have access to the WWE on Netflix. In Japan, the WWE signed a multi-year deal with a streaming service called ABEMA back in 2023, and there are dozens of other countries with pre-existing agreements that the WWE has to honor.

Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage (WWF, 5/24/86) Phil Schneider mentioned this match in his Yahoo article about Hogan's best matches. It's an awesome Hulk/Savage match from the Boston Gardens in what was arguably Hulk's best year in the WWF. Arguably, the Celtics' greatest year, for what it's worth.. Hell of a time to be a Bostonian. They work an excellent formula here. Hogan is on top early. Savage is running scared. He keeps putting Elizabeth in harm's way. Savage eventually takes over before Hogan hulks up, but instead of the usual shtick, Hogan ends up laid out on the arena floor and does one of those great Hogan bladejobs. We're all familiar with smoke and mirrors in a wrestling bout. This is an example of great smoke and mirrors. It even has an awesome visual of Hulk carrying Savage back to the ring after the bout to finish his Hulk up routine, but Randy manages to escape once more. Worth the price of admission and then some.

That Armstrong match is great. Their match from the week before is also fun. Their best match, though, might be their Saturday Night match from August '93.

Lou Thesz Vs. Jersey Joe Walcott | Boxer Vs. Wrestler Match - 1966 I didn't know that Thesz worked these types of bouts. Apparently, Walcott had two of these matches against Thesz and two against Buddy Rogers. There was a Thesz match in '63 and '66. The '63 bout was said to be a shoot, but I doubt it. There's around 8 minutes of footage from the bout. It's mostly a whole bunch of nothing, as you'd expect, but it's not like there's a ton of Thesz footage circulating.

I went down a YouTube rabbit hole that led me to Dara Singh matches, but I'm telling you, I don't think we saw the best of Jose Tarres in the catch footage. He was something else in his youth. Jack Dale (my new hero) was sublime in the way he sold for him.

Someone needs to bring back beard vs beard matches.

Yanneck Fryziuk vs Batistou (10/12/75) Bob ALPRA uploaded a house show match of Batstou's about ten years ago where he came to the ring with the same band. I've got a lot of time for Fryziuk as a wrestler. He wasn't at his fighting best at this stage of his career, but his accumulated wrestling knowledge was impressive to behold. This was a slower heavyweight bout, but it had some exciting moments, such as the part where Fryziuk had Batistou tangled up on the mat, and the forearm contest towards the end. Even though it had a slow, lulling rhythm, it never bored me. Kind of a gentle bout despite the manchettes.

There's a lot more footage available of the 80s and 90s stars than the older stars. Whether anyone will be interested in watching that footage, I'm not sure. There is retrospective interest in older WWF wrestling in terms of podcasts and YouTube video and so on, but it's dwarfed in terms of people's interest in the current product. I imagine that it's always been that way. People are more interested in whatever the latest thing is than older pop culture. Until they get to a point where pop culture passes them by and they gravitate towards the stuff they grew up with, but for the future generations that will be wrestling from the 2010s and beyond.

Cornette's podcast was better than the drivel everywhere else.

Can't say I'm surprised.

I am a huge fan of Mike Bennett, but that Collins stuff was from the end of '84 to early '85. Blitzer vs. Jones is one of my all-time favorite WoS bouts, but the rest I can live without. There was a serious drop off after '84. It really began earlier than that when people started jumping to All-Star, which diluted Joint's talent pool. There is some good stuff post-84, but not very much of it. I doubt Germany/Austria was much better, to be honest. The early 80s in Europe wasn't as good as the 70s, which wasn't as good as the 60s, which wasn't as good as the 50s.

My lucha watching fell off sometime in late 2005, but this feels like as good a time as any to pick things up again. This trios was part of the buildup to the Mistico vs. Black Warrior match at the Anniversary Show. CMLL was hot during this period. There was constant heat throughout the bout and they weren't afraid to cut to a wide shot of Arena Mexico, which was literally packed to the rafters. This was well done. There was a tremendous amount of variety in the bout. I always enjoy it when trios matches throw you little nuggets to enjoy. I particularly enjoyed the individual confrontations that Ultimo Guerrero had with all three tecnicos (one in each fall.) Those are the types of moments that add spice to a trios match. There was a lot of great offense from the tecnicos, and Santo and Casas were complete pros. They had were so seasoned that they knew exactly how to contribute without taking a backseat or overshadowing Mistico. The finish to the segunda caida was so good it felt like the match was over. I was a little confused when the ring girl came strutted down the ramp carrying the tercera card. A nice reintroduction to lucha.

This was pretty good, but it was very measured and slow paced because they were going long. It reminded me of when the All Japan guys would go long and stretch things out a bit, and you'd kind of wish they'd have a shorter, more concise bout. The finishing stretch had its moments, but ultimately that was what we wanted 55 minutes for? The other strange thing about this bout is that because it was a world title match, it didn't pay off the angle from cage match. Perhaps that was done in an earlier bout, but I would have expected more venom from Joe. It'd slot this in the three star range.

Wild Wargames match. A worthy modern rendition of the gimmick. I was oblivious to all of the storylines taking place and still found it absorbing. Definitely one of the best matches from the year.

It's been an age since I've watched an Aja/Satomura match. I was wondering if it would be a case of diminishing returns, but not having watched a match of theirs in such a long time meant that it felt fresh. I'll leave it to others to point out the callbacks and psychology behind the match. I'm not sure whether it was Aja shedding weight, Satomura gaining a few pounds, or a combination of both, but there was no longer a sense that Satomura was outmatched and overwhelmed by Aja, which was fitting given it was the debut show for Satomura's promotion. I don't think it was as epic as the GAEA matches, but it was fitting that Satomura went over.

Time to start reviewing these clips @Matt D I know you love clips.

1946.11.15 Henri Cogan vs. Charlie Fisher We already had some Charlie Fisher in the archive footage, but he's fun to watch. I suspect if we had more Fisher, he'd be a favorite of many since he's a lively and energetic worker. 1946.12.18 Louis Loew vs. Butcher Johnson 1946.4.27 Butcher Johnson vs. Martin Butch Butcher Johnson is another of those great black workers lost to history. A big star in Britain in the 30s and a stalwart of the business right up until Paul Lincoln broke off from Joint Promotions in the early 60s yet, i suspect, an unknown name to most folks. He worked barefoot and was extremely athletic. There was an exoticism associated with him, particularly in the 30s, because of his ethnicity and skin color, but fortunately that didn't prevent him from demonstrating his wrestling prowess in the ring. I suspect he would have been one to watch in the 1930s.

This held up well. Yoshida was a special talented lady. It's a shame she doesn't have a deeper pool of matches as she deserves to be recognized as one of the best wrestlers of the 2000s. As far as I remember, this was style of match wasn't Kimura's forte, but it goes to show that if you execute the fundamentals, sell your ass off, and hit some of your own stuff, then you can have a great match regardless of the matchup. It subtly moved away from a Yoshida style match towards more of a hard fought pro-style match, but even that part of the bout was good. This might be Yoshida's best post-ARSION bout.

As I imagined, most US wrestlers would bill themselves as junior heavyweights. I kind of love how those sites exist when it's a work, though.

This match doesn't getting going until Todd Sinclair orders the restart. After that, it's a fairly intense fight. There are a few miscues, but it's a compelling bout. Danielson's heel performance is overstated. He had one good moment where they had to force a rope break instead of letting him get DQ'ed, but mostly his heel performance was made up of him giving people the finger and hollering that he was the best in the world. The story here was Homicide, win or go home. I have a soft spot for Homicide so I was glad that he won. TBH, the work in the post-match celebration probably tops the work in the match, but I'm sure there were a lot of real emotions mixed in there. I was in two minds about the finish. The nearfall off the Cop Killa was good, but I kind of wish he'd won with the Cop Kila rather than that lariat. The shoulder stuff was pro-wrestling fluff. Danielson did a good job of selling his arm, but you're not gonna win points with me for that. Overall, I thought it was one of the more memorable matches from 2006, but I'm not sure if it was one of the best.

Hulk Hogan & Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage & Honky Tonk Man (WWF, 1/5/87) Another fun match from the peak Hulkamania years. I would have eaten this shit up as a kid. There's a lot going on in this match without a hell of a lot happening in the ring. They give you a taste of Savage/Steamboat without spoiling your appetite for the big bout. There's a reminder of the bad blood between Savage and Hogan, and Honky looms on the horizon of both Steamboat and Savage. It's another bout where you don't get the full Hogan experience, and where everyone else in the bout is doing the work, but it's fun watching Hogan in the Andre role from a few years prior.

1946.11.5 Charles Rigoulot vs. Bill Garnon Garnon was another important figure in pre-war British wrestling. In fact, it was Garmon, along with Atholl Oakeley who introduced Britain to All-in wrestling in 1930. There is a short clip on that match available on YouTube. Garnon was closer to retirement here, and didn't have the strapping physique that he possessed in 1930, but he still cut an imposing figure and was a strong looking man. This may only be a snippet of footage, but it's nice to see these famous names from the 30s in action.

I don't think you're going to find too many examples of US wrestlers between 63 kg (139 lb) and 70 kg (150 lb), certainly not billed at that weight. Almost every wrestler would bill themselves as being over 200lb. I don't think direct comparisons help. I forgot about Rocca. He was certainly spectacular for his time even if he would have been a heavy middleweight in Britain.

1946.1.9 Harry Brooks vs. Mano Melas Harry Brooks was a British star whose career spanned both the pre-war and post-war eras. The lads over at Wrestling Heritage say he was more of a ruffian than a stylist, but I thought he looked fundamentally sound in these clips and had a great physique. He leaned into the foreign heel trope that was so popular in 50s Catch, but it's a good trope and always leads to wild matches and wild crowds. Though from what I can gather, Melas was actually an American wrestler playing off his Greek heritage. Brooks would go on to appear in one of the first televised matches on the BBC in 1947.