Matt D

Ultimately, the same key element is at play in lucha brawls as in almost every other form of great lucha, that transcendent moment of comeback and revenge. You just have to learn to find it, anticipate it, love it and learn to channel it and embrace the trappings and see how they enhance it. I get that not everyone can do that depending on how you're wired and how you process things. There are dozens of things I like more in wrestling, but there's nothing I love more than that moment that the switch flicks and everything changes in lucha.

This isn't an answer to your question but I wanted to post this and haven't seen a good place to recently. Towards the very end of GWE, there were, to my mind, two interesting questions raised. The first was the cultural bits Dylan was poking about how Japanese wrestling was similar to American wrestling in a way that lucha wasn't, etc. I don't remember who raised the second, but he called the entire exercise into question, as to him it wasn't about people ranking wrestlers, but really just people ranking styles. I don't think it was that simple, but it was an interesting thought.

Yeah, I'll be watching a handheld of Baba/Rusher vs the Can-Ams as part of the RWTL or something and he'll cut a promo afterwards and I'm wondering what the hell he'd even have to say about Furnas/Kroffat, you know?

@ohtani's jacket Can you make a case for Shocker? Would you want to? I know when I first got into lucha in around 2013-2014, I enjoyed Rush feud Shocker but it was hard to extrapolate backwards to see him as the guy who was at top of the DVDVR 500 eleven or twelve years earlier. I don't think he was nominated last time.

@EricR will have to make sure he keeps the counterpoint going by doing C+A on Finlay in Germany. We've hit a few of these for SC, but there's still a way to go.

When the time comes, I can make a list of the DC stuff you should check out from the late 80s to early 00s. There are the ones you'd expect like Sandman Mystery Theater or Spectre or PAD's Supergirl, and then the sort of middle of the road long runs like Ostrander's Martian Manhunter or Ordway's Power of SHAZAM, but there's also all kinds of weird stuff out of DC like the Arcudi Doom Patrol or Vext or Major Bummer, or Chase, or Chronos, or the Peyer Hourman, or Aztek, etc.

That’s something we’re hoping to get from the Tenay collection actually.

For things that you think would be reasonable, I still hope for the 2000 CMLL Anniversary Show but it might have never aired due to the Olympics.

Very interesting, thanks. So assuming that this was about half of the episode of the show with Dick the Bruiser vs Bill Melby too, that'd be $225-250 or so. There's still a lot left. In all honesty, probably $50,000 worth to transfer, at least, minus duplicates. Full matches from the 50s seem like a more worthwhile effort to crowdfund then the short and scattered 70s clips restorations, to be honest.

Has anyone actually e-mailed them on how much it is to restore a match and what else is in the collection waiting to be restored? In the video description, they say: If you are interested in sponsoring the digitization and preservation of other matches from this collection, please e-mail [email protected].

Riki Choshu, Shinya Hashimoto, & Ricky Steamboat vs. Big Van Vader, Bam Bam Bigelow, & Animal Hamaguchi (10/11/90) I remember liking that, especially post match stuff with him

We’ve covered them all on SC.

Judo/Lord Al Hayes Ah, for what we don't have. From what we do have, it's a tale of two wrestlers, the young, defiant, indomitable babyface working in France just absolutely crushing guys like a mix between Bob Backlund and Brock Lesnar, and then the crafty and cruel heel wrestling Steve Veidor almost 20 years later, all punctuated by the manager vs manager match with Heenan where he's a de facto face that the crowd loved to hate or hated to love. Is it enough? Probably not for me but maybe for someone, because he's incredibly dynamic in the 50s footage and awesome and despicable in 75. His team with Ray Hunter felt like the best babyace team in the world from the few long matches we have of theirs. Unfortunately a lot of his 1970s was in Amarillo so we just don't have it, but I think people delving into the French footage will want to see everything we do have of him. vs Guy Robin 3/22/57 Hayes/Hunter vs Delaporte/Bollet 2/1/60 vs Steve Veidor (8/11/75)

On a versatility level, I think he's underrated as a 90s stooging rudo jerk. We've got to see that side of him lately in some of the AAA matches that have popped up.

There's the match in question, btw.

I don't see Bryan in my top 5, but I am probably going to be more forgiving for tendencies I don't like in his work before he turned, let's say 25 in 2006, than I will be for stuff after that. That's just an arbitrary date but you get the idea. Maybe that's just a way for me to avoid matches I don't want to watch for those years though.

If I'm not mistaken, he works that the night before KOTR, and it's a pretty long match, so that's a hell of two day stretch for him.

Some Bret matches I really like aren't online I think, things like Bret vs Backlund -- MSG and Bret/Perfect vs Luger/Ramon - MSG. I think handhelds tend to help Bret more often than not.

Eh, I've got time here, but I struggled with him five years ago. I'll struggle with him in five years, I bet. Plenty of time to work this out. There are things I love about him but not a lot that I actually like. That's how I'd put it for now. But he deserves a better than that. I have some suspicions but I'd have to rewatch things to delve into them. I agree with how special and varied his 2000-1 is though.

The guys Hart doesn't like in that book (Lothario, Fullers, Fuji), he really doesn't like.

Five years is a long time, but I feel like I went too high on him last time, maybe due to peer pressure. I appreciate his output far more than his input and someone like that's going to end up right in the middle of my list (which isn't a bad place to be, really). I can see him being my tenth luchador.

You guys have seen Ice Train in Germany, right?

Yeah, that heel vs heel stuff sounds more like what I'm looking for, let alone 63. I do agree he could work a match very different if he was up against Young David or Zoltan Boscik or Jon Cortez. He was very versatile within his role. Which right now seems like it could be enough to propel him all the way to my #11.

Breaks was in my top 10 last time and I wish I could stick him there this time, but it seems a high bar what with me adding the entire country of Japan. Wrestlers who were the absolute best at one thing will have a hard time hitting my top 10 if they weren't also at least extremely good at other things as well. That's just how my list is going to work. Wrestlers like that will 100% be in the 10-20 range, however. I want that footage of Breaks fighting a foreign menace or some upstart asshole or someone just as mean as him where the crowd gets behind him because "Well, that's our bastard, innit?" (the 20-30 range will probably be more reserved for guys like Martel who were close to the absolute best at something I value but where we have the footage of them not being great at other things, as opposed to us just not knowing or for them being actively good at it). But yeah, he's one of the best, most complete, most absolute bad guys in wrestling history.

We just got a new handheld of that which gives us a few extra minutes in the front, some later minutes cut out, better crowd noise and a different camera angle so you get to pick up on different things.