ohtani's jacket

Can anyone recommend some matches where Satomura puts it all together and looks like a GWE? I am only really familiar with her from her GAEA work and that's not a compelling case on its own.

I'm receptive to any praise Hyuga gets, but I'd need match recommendations to be swayed.

Momoe's career was too short by modern standards, though it was roughly the same length as some of the forced retirement candidates who I would be support of. She was a dynamo, that's for sure. My first instinct was to say that she didn't have a GWE-worthy career, but that you could make a pretty cool 'Best Of' tape. My most recent issues with her are that I'm not sure she deserved to win the Big Red Belt and that the match she won it in isn't that great.

That Inoki match is so good. There's gotta be something else. He can't just be a one match wonder.

I'm up to May 2002 in my 00s CMLL viewing and Ultimo Guerrero is a guy who I've come to appreciate. There was no way I would have voted for him in 2006 or 2016 with the bias I had toward classic luchadors, but I'm a firm believer that if I you watch enough of any given wrestler that you come around on them. He was an excellent worker, and you can see that when he's paired against wrestlers like Santo, Casas, Satanico, and Atlantis. For a long time I railed against the state of modern lucha, but I don't have a dog in that fight anymore. I'm no longer resistant to guys like UG who incorporated elements from other wrestling styles and pushed the style forward. I don't know how well his singles work holds up, but the problems I have with his matches are usually related to the booking, the finishes, and the lack of continuity with CMLL TV.

I'm kind of curious how far people go with this. Let's pretend your favorite Japanese wrestler doesn't like foreigners, says disparaging things about them, and would likely treat you the same way if you met them, would you still rank them? If you found our your favorite Japanese wrestler made chauvinistic remarks towards women, would you still support them? Bullying? Hazing? Where do you draw the line?

I get where you're coming from, but if I'm a fan of Akira Maeda, the first thing I'm going to care about is how good he was in New Japan, UWF and RINGS. I'm not going to worry too much about his work in the US or as Kwik-Kik Lee on World of Sport. If it helps his case then great, but if he's not the Akira Maeda I know and love then I am happy to ignore it. If I have a favorite band and I think they released some good records, I'm not going to care if they released a few singles or EPs that I didn't think were as good.

I'm all for glaring flaws. I love pointing out glaring flaws. But is Steamboat being weak in Japan really a glaring flaw? Do I need Steamboat to be good in Japan? I'm pretty sure I can live without Steamboat being good in Japan. Now, Steamboat having weak programs Stateside, that's a disappointment. I really think the Japan thing is only useful in splitting hairs between US workers who were better in a multitude of territories.

One of my favorite wrestlers of all-time. One of the great actors in the history of wrestling and one of the best sellers. That's the image I have of her, and frankly I could go the rest of my life without seeing another match of hers. I feel like I know her as well as I know any other wrestler. Her flaws are the same as every other Joshi wrestler's flaws, though they're sometimes magnified by her smaller stature. If you want to deep dive her work, familiarize yourself with her JWP work both pre-split and split.

There is a long list of foreign wrestlers who aren't that great in Japan. Why does it matter? Are we going to penalize Japanese wrestlers because they aren't that great on excursions?

I watched the Hokuto/Kyoko match. That was a hideous costume that Kyoko wore. I was glad when she ditched the mask because the last thing you want from a Kyoko Inoue match is a bout where you can't see her expressions. The beginning of the bout was more of a crowd pleaser, though the work wasn't anything special, and Hokuto did a front flip that people would hate if other workers did it. This match was during the weird period where schoolgirls were still coming to the shows, and for whatever reason they liked Hokuto and Kyoko much more than Toyota and Yamada. I don't think that had anything to do with the match or the wrestlers' work. They were cheering for Kyoko from the get-go, and later on they made their own original cheer for Hokuto. Kyoko sold her leg the way you're supposed to in this match and then she completely blew it off. Just like every Joshi pro wrestler does. Kyoko's selling in this match was actually kind of weak, but she was young. Hokuto was the better seller at this point. There were a few notable things about her. Firstly, her transitions onto offense were smarter than her peers, and she didn't do the same pop-up selling as Toyota. They could both counter with a missile dropkick and Toyota's would be a million miles an hour and Hokuto's would be slow and deliberate. I could see how that would have a lot more resonance for folks. That said, I thought Toyota's overall selling was better than Hokuto. Where Hokuto shines is her intensity on offense. Very few Joshi pro-wrestlers can match the impact with which she delivers her moves. She blows two nearfalls in this match, which I don't think she should get a pass for, but she is better on offense than the other three. Perhaps that's what makes the ending anti-climatic and unrealistic. I didn't really buy the finish myself. Pretty much my entire feeling about this show was that both pairings had better matches against each on different cards. I don't think Hokuto and Kyoko showed up Toyota and Yamada, though. It's pretty close to which was the better match. I can't decide because I viewed it through the lens of the argument that was presented. However, I will say that Hokuto was nowhere near as good as Dangerous Queen Hokuto and this match did little to push the arguments being presented thus far.

Steamboat's Japan work would only matter to me if he had worked Japan more often or I was looking for some other feather in his cap. I don't have a problem viewing him as a Stateside only candidate. If you wanna argue that others had more versatility, that's fine. I don't think Ricky is hurting when it comes to his body of work.

I watched the 1/4/92 Toyota/Yamada match for argument’s sake. I didn’t see any huge problems with it. I quite liked the opening with Toyota taking on Yanada at her own game and the pair jostling for position. You don’t see that type of thing very often in a Toyota match, especially Toyota having to defend herself after a takedown. It’s not the type of action that’s going to pop the crowd, but I didn’t have a problem with that since it’s a long match that ends in a Toyota chant. I guess they could have chain wrestled for a bit before resetting and circling each other. That may have drawn some applause, but I don’t think it would have added anything to the match. I thought Toyota’s selling was beautiful throughout the match. She doesn’t get enough credit for how well she sells. Would it have been better if she grimaced or sold the leg after the dropkicks? Maybe. She actually runs around the outside of the ring at one point trying to shake it off. If you watch closely, the dropkick attacks are really only short adrenaline bursts. She’s very good at selling the affect effects of the energy she puts into those attacks. You can see her frustration grow with each failed pin attempt and it gets harder and harder for her to get up after every nearfall. The thing about the legwork is that it really wasn’t a focal point of the match. It’s not like Yanada spent an inordinate amount of time working over the knee and Toyota blew it off. She was stretching Toyota at best, and it was the accumulative effect of wrestling such a long match that Toyota wound up selling. And as I mentioned above, Yanada did exactly the same thing when she switched to offense after being stretched by Toyota because that’s what all Joshi pro wrestlers. Things fall apart a bit wth the restarts, and the latter half of the match has too much bomb throwing, but it also earns a Toyota chant from the crowd, and they clearly support her desire to not let it end in a draw. Is it a good match? It’s long and repetitious to an extent, but I’d hardly call it a train wreck and I don’t think it’s a very good example of poor selling from Toyota or questionable match structure. It’s just longer than it needed to be because of the narrative that they’re inseparably close as rivals and competitors. I will watch the Hokuto/Kyoko match later.

I don't have time for people who say they're never going to watch wrestling again and wind up watching it. To me that's just posturing. I don't know any of these wrestlers personally so who am I to judge them? Especially if it's based on hearsay or rumour.

Peruano, and Joachim La Barba as well, are what I imagine a luchador would have looked like working in France in the late 50s. I'm not sure how much of a pro-wrestling scene there was in Peru or South America in the 1950s, but stylistically, the way Peruano works has similar hallmarks to lucha. There are a few other Peruvians who feature in the footage later on who carry on the tradition. I would recommend checking out his early work first. He tones his act down in the 60s compared to his wilder 50s work.

Only four women made it last time? WTF.

Is that 70s footage 8mm footage? He's listed as being on ITV three times in 1965 against Ian Campbell, Ezzard Hart and Peter Maivia. Not sure if the footage exists in the archives but it feels like something that would be obtainable.

If the people who are championing women's wrestling this time round don't like Toyota then I guess there's not much hope for her. I don't understand how people can go through the footage and not understand her better, but if that's how people feel then there's not much that can be done about it.

There's no way you can watch one of Toyota's big matches and not come away thinking she pushed herself to the limit. She leaves it out there on the canvas every time even if she waits until the stretch run in some matches. She was actually quite good at short term selling, or "in the moment" selling, but obviously she wasn't great at long term selling, or callbacks to earlier work, barring the odd exception here and there. I tend to focus on the total impact of the match, but I know that other people like consistency from one moment to the next. Long term selling can be admirable, but if you do it in each and every match, how am I not supposed to believe that your leg or knee is a total wreck? Shouldn't you have a permanent limp and hobble around the entire time? Why are you fine at the beginning of the next match? In that sense, there is no such thing as perfect selling. How often do you watch a Joshi match where they do the submission work in the early going and then by the end of the bout it's meaningless? Aside from being a time killer and a chance to catch their breath, most of the time they're just asserting their dominance over the other worker and doing some trash talking. It's rare that there's any sort of strategic focus to the limbwork. If Toyota was thrown off the Hell in a Cell, I think she would sell it until some kind of transition onto offense. I think she'd lay around for longer than a minute. I actually think she'd sell it pretty well. Then she'd get whipped into the ropes, catch herself, and launch a dropkick off the second rope. Something like that.

I can't remember too many Minami singles matches off the top of my head. I am pretty sure the other matches that had together were decent but nowhere near as good. I'm not a huge fan of Aja even in her prime, though I do respect her and there are matches and performances that I hold in high regard. The reason I say it's problematic is that it's only a matter of time before someone tries to define the length of time that Aja was good and tries to paint her early work as a positive. I understand people pushing their favorites, and I also understand that if you like a worker you're probably more inclined to think their pre/post primes were better than they're given credit for. I'm sure I'd do the same for my favorites. I don't want to say that's what's happening with Hokuto, but I do know from personal experience that when you deep dive a promotion or style, it's an entirely different perspective from cherry picking other folks' recommendations. Pretty much every WoS wrestler that I couldn't stand at one point or another I built a tolerance for after watching all of their matches. If you're watching all of the available AJW then I imagine you're developing a fondness for the midcarders, and you're getting into the crew as a whole, and perhaps you're seeing in great detail how Hokuto is head and shoulders above her peers, which she pretty much was athletically except for Nagahori. Folks are not going to be able to process that level of detail. Perhaps they'll take people's word for it, but I think they need to see it instantly in the matches. When I watch Hokuto's 80s work, for example, I don't see the GOAT or the BITW. I see a promising youngster. I think the Chigusa vs. Hokuto match is fantastic, but in my mind Chigusa is on another level in that match. Just like Bull was when Hokuto feuded with her. When Hokuto wrestles Toyota and Minami then I see her against her peers and can make that direct comparison, but I am not convinced that Hokuto had the immediate impact that say Yokota did. Her early work is a positive, for sure, but I don't see it as a trump card.

I actually re-watched that Ito/Toyota match tonight. Really good match. Miles better than the return match. Picking one Toyota match is tough. I like the Big Egg choice. The first matches that come to mind for me are the '89 Toyota vs. Yamada, the '93 JGP match against Fukuoka, and the '98 Kandori match. Those are matches thatches that have stuck in my head.

Man, this was a blast. I'd been meaning to watch this since Patterson died. I love me a good WWF escape rules cage match and this was one of the best ever. Patterson proved here that you can have an intensity, bloody brawl in a WWF cage match while still fighting tooth and nail to escape the cage. Backlund was great in his role as well. As Vince mentions, brawling was against type for Bob, but he didn't back down and took the fight to Patterson. You couldn't have asked for more from this match. Vince was great on commentary and the MSG fans were amazing during this era. I love the cops everywhere and the entire atmosphere. That living and breathing 70s NY culture. You can't beat it anywhere in the wrestling world. This was the most fun I've had watching wrestling in forever.

I like Marine Wolves Hokuto as much as the next guy. The 4/91 Minami match was always one of my favorite Hokuto matches back in the day. But as soon as people start chucking out BITW claims my mind starts rattling off a list of alternative names. I don't think that sort of hyperbole does wrestlers any favors. Dave's comments are problematic in that they ignore Bull and don't paint Aja in a great light.

This was more of a proto version of their matches later on the year but Quance remains one of the discoveries of the year.

Cheers.