El-P

El Dandy is a guy that was pimped pretty hard back during the GOAT poll by the few lucha hardcores, and the big matches that had been posted convinced me he was a great worker in his prime and I actually included him in my list because of it. Fun times.

As a guy who spent countless hours talking about joshi from 1999 to about 2002 on various forums including several specifically dedicated to the style (and with a numbers of people), it's a bit sad to see that in 2012, things have reverted to the point of having to argue and demonstrate that joshi isn't all Toyota/go-go-go/screaming.

Is that the one where Aja beats the shit out of Hotta's hand and brutalizes her ? Is so, yes, amazing match.

Trying to see how they compare as workers. Jeez. They are three pro-wrestler doing pro-wrestling. In the modern era no less. Because gender doesn't matter one bit. They are pro-wrestlers, they are judge by the same exact criteria. It's fucking simple. No. The above statement is nonsense. And Aja is probably better than Flair too. They don't "face" each other. They *work* with each other. Because it's a convention of a spectacle that portrays itself as a sport. But it's not a sport. It's a craftmanship. Therefore, it's like playing guitar or directing a movie or doing stand ups routines. Being a man or a woman doesn't matter. It's the same thing. Which is why you can work mixed gender match and be perfectly fine.

The fact that he is a complete idiot in denial has a lot to do why the Youshoot interview will be worthless too. Of course, the seminar is akin to Flair's financial placement counseling company.

In 2000 ARSION & Battlarts ran the P*Mix tournament, which was about mixed matches, and with the exception of your token pervert comedy spot by one guy (hey, it's wrestling, and it's Japan, what do you expect ?), it was pretty straight on and serious, and the girls and the guys worked spots together like it was nothing different. ARSION ran a few of these matches with the Apache sisters too, including working with their father, and it was good and refreshing. No bullshit.

It's a convention. Wrestling is a performance disguised as a sporting event. But in reality, if Vince McMahon wanted to put the World Title belt on Chyna or even Sable, of course he could have done it. Wrestling isn't a sport. Easy, we look at both workers merits in comparative skills that are : work, moveset, execution, psychology, selling, number of great matches, promo skills if you want, and that's it. How is that hard to do ? It's easy. It's really easy to see that Akira Hokuto is a much better worker than John Cena, that Aja Kong trumps Ted Dibiase, and that Bret Hart squashes Yumiko Hotta. It's easy as hell. They all do the same thing, with only a few stylistic differences. It's like comparing Jane Campion and Ingmar Bergman. It's easy. They both are movie directors.

I don't know, it doesn't struck me that way. Still, it doesn't keep me from comparing male and female actors from an even point of view. It bothers me more in music though. I find it insanely stupid to always compare women with women only. When you think for a minute or two about it, things are still very concescending towards women in general.

Why ? Because you don't like Julia Roberts or because you don't like women acting ? I mean, sorry but it doesn't make a lick of sense. Do I want to listen to Justin Bieber ? Fuck no. Does that has anything to do with "male singing" ? Fuck no. None of this is related to gender. Wait, does that mean you wouldn't watch a movie with mostly women acting ? Yeah. You can choose. Just like I've choosen long ago to not watch lucha because I don't get into it. But it's a matter of style, not gender. Yet, wrestling isn't a sport, it's a performance.

Oups.

FWIW, I enjoyed american wrestling more once I got "fluent" in English enough to understand the promos without having to rely on subtitles or translations.

Of course. But you always have to take in account that the settings and cultures are different, and although sometimes it's obvious that X wrestler has shitload of charisma (Choshu, Hash, Muto, Chiggy, Onita, Kobashi, Toyota, Hokuto, Aja), we must not forget that our natural inclination is to look out for the things we are the most familiar with. Some aspect of puroresu I'm sure appeals to japanese people in ways we don't exactly understand sometime. Same thing for lucha (which in ways is even more alien than puroresu if you except the shoot-style subgenre). That's all what I meant.

Judging Japanese guys by american standarts would make no sense at all. Besides, tons of japanese guys have great charisma and probably great promo skills. I mean, I don't understand what Onita says, but it translates nonetheless. Ditto Aja Kong or Akira Hokuto.

Wrestling is not a competition. Saying there's no gender equality in wrestling is like saying there's no gender equality in acting, singing or dancing etc... It makes no sense.

Nord ? I don't think so. It was Brian Clark (Wrath/Adam Bomb) who did. Maybe Nord had a big wining streak on Saturday Night though.

I seem to remember a fun John Nord vs Barbarian match on Nitro sometime. I think I've seen Nord have a good match with Snuka in 1991, and that was Nord's doing. He's a guy I wish would have recieved a bigger push somewhere.

Yep. He was an immature manipulative asshole in life, so it fit him perfectly. This is also my favourite Michaels era as far as character goes, from the Summer of 97 to WM 14.

I won't even comment on Takada because it's beating on a dead horse at this point. Takada = great worker. I've not seen that much of comeback Suzuki, but young Suzuki in the second UWF trumps HHH seven ways to sunday. Tanaka may have become lazy in New Japan, I can't judge as I haven't seen that much of that period save for a few HEAT matches, but before that, the guy was superb. Terrific worker. Plus he married Yumi Fukawa, so he's better than all of us.

Looking back at this period in retrospect, I don't understand this Credible hate at all, and most of it seems to be people working themselves up against the guy. He didn't give long promos in the ring. He was a bad promo, but it wasn't cutting HHH's long monologue style that would kill a crowd. He was pushed as the main event only during the last 7 months of the promotion, and probably solely because Mike Awesome suddenly left. I do think the Impact Players would have stayed together quite longer if Storm hadn't left. I thought he did more than a decent job working on top of a dying promotion with no star power left anyway. Solid worker, really good bumper, probably safe to work with. Like you said, not overly reliable on gimmicks despite the style of the company. Really, what was there to hate ? The name was stupid, the promos weren't good, the look was kinda nondescript, but Credible always came off to me as a good guy who worked hard and did his best with the position he was put into. And yes, he's better than HHH, easily.

Well, since I'm at it : _Carl Oulette

Well, Carl Oulette. He would have been a great fit in either company at this point if they had kept on. Never got back to WWF despite being a really good and impressive worker. Never really got to Japan apart from a few AJ tours. I know he worked PR, but was quickly back in working indies in Quebec. Really a lost opportunity.

Justin Credible vs Carl Oulette - HCTV 2000.07.16 I'm glad I got my hands on those 2000 HCTV so I got to see that match. I've always been an Oulette fan, and was gutted he never got a fair shake after the initial Quebecer stint. This is one of his random appearance looking awesome (I know he worked AJ at one point too). Thus far I only got to see him kill referee HC Loc on house shows, but here he delivers one of the best Justin Credible single match I've seen. Justin just gets killed by Oulette who can deliver the big spots in spade. One thing I love about Oulette is the way he puts so much into everything he's doing. It's basically a bomb throwing match, and Francine has to cane Oulette so that Justin can get back on offense. Not for long though before comes one of the most brutal table spot I've seen, as Oulette looks like a cannon ball putting credible through this. A few minutes later, it's the turn of Francine herself, which allows Credible to cane Oulette from behind as he celebrates. Oulette is really one guy who got fucked bad by ECW and WCW going under, as he never got back to WWF for some stupid reasons. He was one hell of a power/spot worker, a great bumper and always brought a lot of intensity to all his matches. Truly a lost worker of the late 90's. Really cool match.

Vince is doing a Youshoot too. Amazing that this guy is still able to make money out of milking a mythological über success that dates from 15 years ago now, and despite a proven track record of being a abysmal failure since then. People are too stupid.

That's what I understood about what you said, and previous statements that you were bored with such and such wrestlers you've seen too much of, as great as they may be. Every poll would be a time capsule of a period anyway. If we did a poll today, Jerry Lawler and Yoshiaki Fujiwara would probably be high as hell. In ten years, maybe not anymore, who knows.

So that's your knew habit ? Mmmkay. Yes, I know, I can read. I don't think *a lot* went strictly by memories, there was shitload of match uploaded, shitload of discussions for months. Some voters surely did it. See, I can bold words too.