ohtani's jacket

Maple Leaf Wrestling, 1/15/57 Well, this was a treat. Especially getting to see the iconic Maple Leaf Gardens ring set-up in 1957. It's not new footage as it was uploaded to YouTube in 2019, but I doubt I would have come across it if not for Matt. Baron Gattoni vs. Billy Red Lyons Gattoni was a highly intelligent and cultured man outside of the ring, but he wasn't a very interesting worker inside it. I suppose that's because he was working a strength based gimmick, but there are more entertaining barons in 50s wrestling. It was weird seeing Lyons as a jobber. The Millers (Bill/Ed Miller) vs. Pat Flanagan/Ken Kenneth I've never really cared for the Millers. If you value heel tag team wrestling, you may feel differently. Flanagan was a fun foil and it was cool to see a fellow Kiwi representing. This was a showcase for the Millers who were new to the territory. I wish we'd seen a bit more of the Millers' wrestling skills because they had the credentials and a few of their holds looked halfway decent. Edouard Carpentier vs. Steve Stanlee I prefer this flashy version of Carpentier to the version we saw in France. i have no idea why he didn't work like this in Paris. The match was a pure showcase for Carpentier but Stanlee was the best third rate Buddy Rogers I've seen in a while and earned a few chuckles.

There are countless instances of Walton getting frustrated with the crowd for not reacting to the work in the ring. There are also instances of Walton getting frustrated with the workers for not putting on a better match. However, when Walton would say that a match was one for the purists, that acknowledges the (small) portion of the audience who valued ringwork over shenanigans . All this crap about Walton educating British viewers to be a higher class of fan is pompous. And harkening everything back to American-whatever is jingoism. Look at a French audience from a 50s match where a French guy is fighting a foreign heel. The crowd, probably some of them already drunk, are fired up and on the verge of fighting with the workers not because of the great Catch aesthetic but because they're being worked. I'm sure there were an element of fans who preferred pure Catch and hated the brawling and all of the gimmicks, but that element were clearly in the minority. You are dismissive of brawling, fine, whatever, but you keep painting these false narratives. McManus vs. Pallo was one of the biggest feuds of the 60s in Britain. The work in the FA Cup match pales in comparison to the Jacky Corn vs. Bill Howes match. It's not bad, but I am certain everyone who's seen the footage would argue with me. There's no question, though, that McManus and Pallo were the draw. The reason for that is obvious. It's got nothing to do with projecting American notions onto jack. A large portion of the British audience wanted to see Catweazle not Alan Serjeant. It's okay. It's just want way things are. It's the same reason why more people enjoy blockbusters movies than foreign films. You missed the point on the great matches comment. I didn't say that there aren't any great Catch matches. My point was that the match layout isn't orientated towards the type of structures and match layouts that new fans are used to. In order to help fans who are struggling to get into Catch, it helps to look at the issues from all sides instead of pretending like Americans can't appreciate anything that's different from an American-centric product.

Forget about the skill and artistry of getting out of a hold. That's not what new viewers are looking for. They're looking for ebbs and flows and a dramatic conclusion. It's like pimping a Fujiwara match that has amazing defensive but doesn't feature a dramatic KO finish. The average fan won't appreciate it. European matches of this era aren't built the same way that modern wrestling is. There is a lot to admire about the work, but if your focus is on great matches then it's a tougher sell. I imagine the average Catch worker in the 50 and 60s probably had the mentality of going out there and doing their shit and not necessarily working a great match, but apparently the promoters knew differently and there may have been more of that in the provinces where it was tougher to draw crowds back.

I am well aware of the fact that workers like Pete Roberts possessed finely honed skills. The argument is whether clean wrestling is the archetype. I would argue that it's the ideal, but it was far from archetypal. I don't believe that promoters would have wanted it to be the archetype. I don't think there's money in it being the archetype. I don't believe that everyone in the audience enjoyed it. There are countless examples of it being a hard sell on the television screen. I believe the average WoS viewer and the average fan in attendance wanted to cheer for their favorites and boo the heels. All of this rah, rah, well played technical stuff was a sideshow. Wrestling is built on the personalities. Even at the height of 50s catch, it's not the wrestling that's at the forefront but the masked gimmick workers. I agree that there are distinctly European moves and counter moves. Everyone knows that. The argument is that those moves were not the main draw. As for whether France was a dying territory or not, you can believe what you want to believe. I don't give two craps about comparisons to the US. At least there's an acknowledgement there that the territories died.

Very few workers have signature finishers. There a workers that have signature spot, but typically the workers have an arsenal of moves they use to score a pinfall or submission and sometimes they just use standard moves. Most finishes are BS. They workers lose their temper and it descends into a forearm smash contest and the match is thrown out somehow. Sometimes it went off air without a result because the match was still in progress. One thing that I struggled with when watching Catch was the rhythm and pacing of the falls. WoS was easier because of the rounds system, but the three fall system in Catch often led to long and ponderous matches that lacked the rhythm of lucha three fall matches where the formula is clear as day. The focus is from spot to spot rather than any kind of specific match layout. I'm not convinced they thought about matches in those terms.

Which is one style of wrestling. It's actually my favorite style of French and British wrestling, but to the original point, even the rise of Le Petit Prince, who was a phenomenal worker that's still not getting his due among wrestling fans, and the other great lightweights of the late 60s and early 70s doesn't mean that there wasn't a sharp decline in everything Catch related from the 50s to the end of the 60s. It's a beckon in a dying territory, the same way Grey, Saint and Breaks were in the UK, but Catch as an artform peaked in the 50s.

Le Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier is not the archetypal French catch bout. Saint vs. Faulkner isn't the archetypal British bout either. They are one style of wrestling within a myriad of different styles. There isn't a singular style that defines either country's wrestling. A middleweight lucha title bout doesn't define lucha libre just as a lightweight bout doesn't define Japanese wrestling.

Those are characteristics of light weight wrestlers not Catch as a whole.

The decline is noticeable in the footage itself. The average bout from the late 60s pales in comparison to the late 50s with regard to just about everything from the quality of the work to the overall atmosphere and level of crowd engagement. I don't think France was unique in this regard. I think you can drew parallels to the US and the state of wrestling in the 60s compared to the 50s. In both cases, wrestling was a huge draw during the early years of television but gradually faded. Japan was a little different because it took longer for post-war to recover and televisions weren't widely owned until the 1960s. They also benefitted from two next-generation superstars in Baba and Inoki. A deeper dive into the topic would look into what replaced catch as popular TV programming. I'm not sure what happened with US television, and I know next to zero about French TV. I'm simply assuming that catch gave way to something else the way that wrestling did in Japan.

The recently surfaced (near) full-length Devil vs. Jaguar from '83 is a missing piece of the puzzle that we didn't have before. It's an interesting match as it gives us a glimpse into the peak of the period between Jaguar vs. Jackie and Jaguar's big matches from '85 and also adds the wrinkle of Devil Masami as the willful challenger. I thought it lent weight to the argument that the reason that Jaguar wasn't as big a star as Jackie or Chigusa was that because everything that was cool about her was also scary and imitating for the fans. She was perhaps a little too kakkoii even in comparison to the highly emotive Masami. It's an excellent match worked in the slower, more traditional title match style. Both women work hard. As far as the finish is concerned, I think anyone who believes AJW decided title matches under shoot-pin rules is out to lunch. Obviously, I can't prove that, but it doesn't stand to reason. It's possible that the Matsunagas screwed with the wrestlers somehow as they liked getting in their heads, especially when they were feuding with each other, and it's also possible that they instructed the ref to do something screwy. I would not put it past the Matsunagas to have told Devil she was going to win the belt and then screw her over. It is possible that her emotions at the end are real, but I also think you have to understand the mentality of Japanese fans, who are not interested in breaking kayfabe or learning about the inside workings of the business and would gladly believe that shoot pins were a thing and that Inoki's victories over martial artists were legit. I do believe the likes of Debbie Malenko who said sometimes they would go into a bout without knowing the winner and then the time keeper or someone would signal the winner during the finishing stretch. I just don't believe that outside of rookie matches they were deciding their champion passed on a shoot pin. I also think that if that was a shoot pin, it wasn't a very convincing one. I don't watch a ton of amateur wrestling outside of the Olympics, but they sure as heck put up more of a struggle than they did here. So, in my mind, it's a work, but what folks should really be concentrating on is peak 1983 Jaguar. I could easily convince myself that she was top 10 all-time if weighting things towards the things in wrestling that I like.

Man, Joe just fucked Daniels up in this match. I actually thought Daniels would win with the Best Moonsault Ever and bit on the nearfall before Joe killed him again with the Super Island Driver. I have this romantic notion in my head that Kobashi passed the mantle of Best Worker in the World to Joe after their ROH match, but what about Daniels? it baffles me that no one really talks about him anymore.

This was one of those interesting matchups the indies sometimes throw at you as Lance Storm came out of retirement to challenge Danielson for the ROH World title, As much as we enjoyed poking fun at Storm for his response to the DVDVR 500, he was in truth a pretty good worker. He was very much a product of the 90s. He reminded me of a cross between Chris Benoit and Dan Kroffat in this match, and was technically very sound, but the bout also reminded me of his limitations, as he simply didn't have the ability to make you care about his title shot. His selling made sense from a wrestling perspective, but it didn't have the intensity that draws you a great wrestling match. Danielson was his rangy self, but I don't get the hype over his heel champ act. Here's a mildly controversial take that very few people will read, but Triple H was a better heel champ than Danielson. Danielson was, of course, the far better wrestler, and I doubt Triple H could have crafted a bout this good with Lance Storm, but Triple H would have pissed the fans off a lot more.

This was pretty good, but like most of the matches on this show it was too short. You don't expect a world title match to clock in under ten minutes. I thought the beats were good, so whoever laid it out did a good ob. My only gripe would be that an arm drag to the outside shouldn't have been enough to prevent Angle from interfering with the finish to the match. Rey (or Orton) should have taken him out with something more devastating. Rey winning the title by pinning the co-challenger wasn't as impactful as Benoit making Triple H tap, and I hated that they used Eddie's death to fuel the storyline, but if they didn't have the stones to run Rey vs. Angle as a singles match then at least they delivered a decent bout.

Taue was a decent athlete. He could have made it to the makuuchi division if not for his feud with his stable master, which, reportedly, was largely fueled by Taue's distain for training. He was a big guy and physically strong. However, I'm not referring to natural talent. I'm talking about overall talent, including the type of talent that can be developed through studying and training. Misawa, Kawada, and especially Kobashi, didn't walk into the dojo on day one as the finished product. They worked their butts off (some would say to their detriment.) Taue wasn't like that. He was like an NBA player that coasts during the regular season then explodes in the playoffs. They used to call him Tagami Volcano because of the way he'd fire up for big matches. Taue was charismatic and lovable. It was easy to sympathize with him. However, there are clear reasons why he was never the ace of All Japan despite having the height and size that Baba valued. If Taue had possessed the right work ethic there is a reasonable chance that Baba would have pushed him as the next Jumbo and Misawa would have never gotten the push that he did (or at best would have been a perpetual challenger to the champion, Taue.) Personally, I like the version of Taue that we got more than that idealized version, and I'm quite happy with the way things played out, but I think that's the reality of the situation.

Taue is awesome, but it's this constant cycle of people falling head over heels in love with him then overrating the crap out of him. I know this because I did the same thing back in the day. Taue is fun to root for, but there's no way that he was as talented as the other three. You may like him more than the other guys, but let's not get carried away. He was a decent athlete with a lousy work ethic who appeals to fans because of his everyman qualities. He produced good work within the All Japan system, but the dude was along for the ride. He was not the driving force of that style. People can vote for him super high if they want, but as far as I'm concerned a good comp for Akira Taue would be Akira Maeda. A personal favorite of mine, but can I really make an argument that he's better than Fujiwara or Tamura? Probably not, but it's an argument that doesn't have to be made. If I'm picking Maeda over those guys it's because of intangibles.

Damn. RIP Terry, and thank you.

This is what we said all along. It was kind of obvious but at least we have proof. In retrospect, I wonder what the last year was that Catch really mattered.

Invaluable research. Thanks for all of your effort, Phil. Is there a way to make sure it doesn't get lost in case the Wrestling Classics board blows up?

This was a nice match, but I thought it was weird that they wrestled it under Pure rules yet it descended into a pure pro-wrestling match instead of a technical clinic. That won't bother most viewers, but what was the point in using the Pure rules?

This was weak compared to Orton/Foley. There wasn't a single part of the match that did anything for me.

lol at Triple H's King Conan entrance. It was better than Cena's entrance. The crowd was electric for this and the split crowd made for quite the spectacle. Even JR admitting that he couldn't relate to Cena gave the match a different feel from the typical JR commentary. He leaned into the blue collar aspect of Cena's gimmick vs. Triple H being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, even though the latter hadn't been part of Triple H's gimmick for a while, and of course there were the obligatory football mentions, but it was straight hearing JR call a match where he wasn't slobbering over the babyface. The match was well laid out. In fact, I thought it was the best Cena match in quite some time given how disappointing the Angle/Michaels feud was. Credit should go to Triple H for not sabotaging the match, I suppose. He brought his A game. I liked that they kept it simple and didn't try to do too much. The crowd was stunned when Triple H tapped. It's hilarious to me that after Triple H's reign of terror, the crowd hated Cena so much that they welcomed a Triple H title win. That's some serious backlash. It was cool that they leaned into it instead of ignoring it, even though Cena must have felt a little hurt.

This was a fun, high energy 6-man that set the tone for the buildup to WrestleMania. I was particularly impressed with the exchanges between FInlay and Mysterio and Benoit and JBL. In fact, if Benoit and JBL had worked a proper feud with as many PPV matches as Eddie and JBL had, I have no doubt that they would have produced a great match. I'm a big JBL guy, but I thought they had outstanding chemistry here and it's a matchup that excites me. Finlay and Rey also had potential to have a great match. It's a shame that they weren't given the freedom to do so.

This was quite minimalistic. Probably a feather in KENTA's cap that he could so credible inflicting damage on a heavyweight. Kobashi looked like he was running on fumes, but even broken down Kobashi is a compelling watch.

This was a decent enough match. Shane took some crazy bumps like a back suplex off the top of the ladder, over the ropes and threw a table, and Vince and Shawn hamming it up worked for the most part. The finish was an eye-rolling callback to Montreal, and I don't see who in their right mind wanted to see Shawn feud with Vince, but Shane always tries to pull his weight in the ring. JR kept calling Vince Satan. Probably not that far from the truth.

These two wrestled a million times but this one had extra spice as it was on the go home show before WrestleMania. I liked that they let them wrestle a clean match and had Orton make an appearance after the match was decided. I also liked the fact that they made the champ Angle look strong without resorting to cheating. Rey got a close nearfall without a ref bump and Angle showed how good he was on the counter. They could have easily done a BS finish where Orton interfered, but instead they chose to put over the champ.