ohtani's jacket

I have a hard time believing that is true, but I'll take their word for it and dial back the rhetoric.

A lot of it has to do with the audiences they performed for. I don't think ROH fans, or modern WWE and AEW fans are quite the same as Japanese salarymen.

Imagine if we had footage from the 50s, 60s and 70s? When most people think about Portland, they think of Buddy Rose, but there were plenty of other great runs as well. It's time to champion the small-to-mid market, regional successes in wrestling. Enough of this papered baseball stadium attendance figure crap. Don Owen did more for the Northwest and the Portland community than Okada has ever done for Japan. Go the little guy.

I'll take that back then. As far as I recall, the last time Dave was interested in Mexico was when Mistico had his original run in CMLL.

This is true, but 90% of the vote? That can only be because of his matches, and the fact that Dave is behind him. The same thing happened with Mistico, who fell one vote short.

Stick him on the ballot. He sounds worthier than some of the names already on there.

Business is mediocre compared to the 90s, and the cultural impact of wrestling is nonexistent compared to the 80s. How did he get in with over 90%?

If they get into the HOF as All-Stars, then yes, more than you'd expect.

Dave's whole mentality seems to be that if you're a ball club that won a whole lot of games and some division tiles, you're not HOF worthy if you didn't win a championship. I get that for the most part, but when you times limited success by 10, or 20, or 30, or 40, that's a long time to be in business. How long do we think NOAH, ROH, TNA or AEW will last?

All right, then. I can't understand Dave's mentality at all. In fact, I do not understand why Okada was a slam dunk when business in Japan is rubbish compared to what it used to be. Okada was on top of a rubbish heap? Truly worthy. Obviously, some folks voted for Owen. Can anyone explain why?

Why shouldn't the Hall reward longevity? What exactly is wrong with surviving as a promoter for 30 or 40 years? Does this mean the Joint Promotions promoters, the German promoters, and the Paris promoters weren't successful because they ran smaller venues? How can the fact that Owen owned the building his TV show was shot in, and had one of the longest running television shows in wrestling history, be a negative?

Comparing Owen to a wrestler who was never a draw or a good worker seems unfair. If Owen is such a bad candidate why did people vote for him? And since when did having a sustainable business model become mediocre? I’d also like to know how Rocco came so close to making it in. If Portland wrestling is considered mediocre then how can Rocco have a leg to stand on?

Gordon Solie Interviews Joe Scarpa Regarding The March 5th, 1968 Card At Fort Homer Hesterly Armory -- Scarpa talks about his upcoming match with Johnny Valentine. Valentine has been accusing Scarpa of using his sleeper as a chokehold. Scarpa says he could if he wanted to, but he never would. I desperately want to see this bout. The main event of the show is a 6-man cage match, which seems pretty wild for 1968. Thunderbolt Patterson (1970) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Thunderbolt Patterson is interested in one thing, and one thing only, money! He likes the finer things in life like Cadillacs and diamond rings. Fun promo. 22 Man Over The Top Rope Battle Royal (June 2nd, 1973) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- a 22 Man Over the Top Rope Battle Royal would ordinarily be pretty worthless, but this one ends with Paul Jones vs. Buddy Colt! Paul says he'll gladly put up the eight grand he won from this match for a shot at Buddy's Florida title. Good stuff. Ernie Ladd Turns Heel On Dusty Rhodes (June 8th, 1977) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Ernie Ladd does a fabulous job of explaining why he turned on Dusty Rhodes. Dusty does an even better job of selling it in the ring. Top segment. Bounty Match! Dusty Rhodes vs Giant Baba (June 25th, 1974) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Dusty has fun commentating over the Hart Army & the Bounty Hunter, Giant Baba!, attacking him before Dusty and the babyfaces finally clear the ring. OK footage.

Strong Kobayashi c vs. Rusher Kimura IWA Heavyweight Title 2 of 3 Falls (7/9/73) Nobody's going to confuse these two with the greats of Japanese professional wrestling, but they went out there and had their match. One thing I appreciated about it was that instead of lying in holds all day, which Kimura, in particular, didn't know how to work, they quickly started beating the shit out of each other and worked short falls with plenty of bomb throwing. Much better than the alternative.

Juan Botana vs. Yanek Fryziuk (aired 7/25/65) At some point in the mid-60s, Jean Fryziuk started going by the name of Yanek Fryziuk (possibly meant to be Janek Fryziuk), but he was still recognizable by those amazing punches. And boy did Botana make for a fantastic punching bag. This looked like a barrel of fun. Fryziuk is great.

El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas (12/1/95) This was a good title match, but on first watch, I wouldn't call it a lost or overlooked classic. It was most notable for being one of the least formulaic matches I've seen Santo work. He did very few of his signature spots, and his sole focus was on making Casas submit. It was quite a minimalistic title match in that sense. I thought the first two falls lacked the intensity and urgency that the occasion demanded. Casas was in control for much of the early going, and I'm still not sure how I feel about him as a mat worker. He's not bad on the mat, but he's definitely more exciting when he's kicking and chopping opponents. Santo looked much stronger on the mat and some of his counters were fantastic. The intensity lifted in the tercera, and Casas had some brilliant escapes, but I wasn't sold on the finish. I really wanted to add this to the canon, so to speak, but I liked the September match more, and I'm leaning towards thinking that Santo vs. Casas is a better brawling match up than a technical one. Story wise, this adds some context to the Santo heel turn as losing the match seemed to really peeve Santo.

Don Leo Jonathan vs. Strong Kobayashi (IWE 5/2/1972) So, Strong Kobayashi died the other day, and I was in the convenience store and I saw it made the front page of the sports newspaper, so I thought I should watch a Kobayashi match. This match isn't for the faint of heart as the crowd is practically mute. There are a lot of strength spots, as you'd imagine from this match-up, but they also use a lot of flips (Jonathan seems to like taking bumps off flips.) Kobayashi does some decent head scissors work, but he's not exact a mat wiz. The match picks up once Jonathan starts brawling, and I really liked his boxing spots. Jonathan is a guy we never talk about even though we should. There's a confusing restart in this, and Kobayashi wins against the run of play, but overall it was decent.

Rene Ben Chemoul & Gilbert Cesca vs. Anton Tejero & Pancho Zapata (aired 7/18/65) This was a nice blend of cocky babyface moves and retaliatory heel work. Couderc certainly enjoyed it as he kept laughing and singing random songs. It was hard to get a gauge on how good Zapata was, as he was mostly stooging for the babyfaces, but he was entertaining in that role and sold beautifully. I liked the part where he threw Cesca back into his corner after the heels won the first fall. Later on, he had took a big bump off a missed dive, and sold the babyfaces' punches like he was Terry Funk. The rest of the performances weren't eye-opening, but one thing I liked about the bout is that they worked a normal three-fall progression. It wasn't a great match, but it had a definite three act structure unlike something of these Catch matches where the falls are uneven lengths and the rhythm feels off. Zapata was the highlight.

The Observer says that it was a free show on Sun Beach during a fireworks festival.

Atlantis, Shocker & Silver King vs. Dr. Wagner Jr., Emilio Charles. Jr. & Negro Casas (12/29/95) Quiet match to close out the year. Nothing really exciting happens and there are no standout performances. Casas is matched up with Shocker, and sells big time for him, but it's not very captivating.

Yagi! This was a reminder of just how good Yagi was. What a polished, consummate performer. Yagi vs. Hyuga and Ran Yu Yu? Yes, please! Add to that a pretty decent Dynamite Kansai clone in Genki, and you have a nice hard hitting Joshi tag. These overhead JWP handhelds may be the best Joshi action available from 2002 given how clipped the GAEA and ARISON matches are

Commando Bolshoi was a great worker, which is something that unfortunately doesn't get recognized enough. She was pretty much a female version of Delfin at this point. This is a semi-serious, semi-competitive comedy match against a limited opponent, and Bolshoi still looks good. I get the appeal of Tanny Mouse from the crowd's perspective. The point I want to make is how good Bolshoi looks in a low stakes match like this. Give the girl her due.

I love Homicide and Steve Corino is a guy who I have a newly acquired taste for, so this struck my interest. Corino cuts a pretty decent promo before the bout. He's trying hard to be old school, but I'll give him credit. The match feels more like Homicide doing a Steve Corino match than a proper showdown between the two, even though Homicide is the champ, but it's cool seeing Homicide do arm drag takeovers and other babyface moves. Less than 15 minutes long, which is against the norm for 2002 indy matches, but worth watching if you like these guys and have some spare time.

I've found a series I can binge read, and that's Fables. I've had a poke around and a lot of people seem to think it's an allegory for Bill Willingham's questionable politics, but to me it's a damn good yarn. I guess when I need something to binge read, I always end up turning to Vertigo. First Preacher, then Ennis' Hellblazer, Sandman Mystery Theatre, and Y: The Last Man. There's this buzz I get whenever I open a Vertigo book that makes me feel right at home. I guess I was a target reader for the imprint, or perhaps it's nostalgia since the imprint was launched right around the time I got into more serious comics. I'm also enjoying Saga. The other title I'm reading daily is Ms. Tree, after reading some discussion about it on another forum. Love Mike Tree, don't love duotone. Especially the brown duotone. Blue is okay, but I wish they had stuck with four colors. I also read Marvels for the first time (yep, that's right.) Is it the best Marvel comic of the 1990s, and if so, does it bother anyone that the best Marvel comic of the 90s was a reimagining of the glory days instead of something completely new? Another mini-series I read was James Robinson's Golden Age. I have no affinity for the DC Golden Age characters, but for some reason I like reading 1990 reinventions of them (Starman, Sandman Mystery Theatre, etc.), which is strange because post-Crisis reboots have been bothering me so much lately. Golden Age started strong but lost steam halfway through. In the end, it wasn't anything that Alan Moore hadn't done better in Watchman and Miracleman.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat