Matt D

Yeah, I looked through that for a few minutes and didn't get a really good opinion one way or the other. They went on last on some shows where the real main event was in the middle and were second to the last on a lot of cards where the real main event seemed at the end. Then I bowed out by halfway through the year and posted here.

It's not totally relevant to this but since New York was brought up, I'd be curious to see an examination of his card placement in 84.

I really loathe 88 Bulldogs. Dynamite was fairly good at garnering sympathy because he was so broken down but despite that they had a really bad year of taking way too much of their matches and playing against their strengths.

This is one hell of a match. I got a bit thrown by the rudo/tecnico designation, but I think ultimately, it doesn't matter. Casas was the first one to really get aggressive with his running leap across the ring onto the leg, but Santo not having to be fit within a formula of overcoming adversity was somewhat freeing to him. He was able to bring a lot more intensity instead of sitting up out of moves and what not. The one fall structure was used very well; I don't even think they go for a pin for the first fifteen minutes. Loss is completely right on how this screwed with the conventions, but it did so in some really smart ways. The sequence of Casas hitting the corner dropkick to Santo in the tree of woe, going for La Casita, getting pushed away, going for another corner dropkick only for Santo to move and then Santo hitting the plancha was amazing. My one problem with the match was that Casas didn't sell more after Santo's super arm-breaker rocker dropper of doom thing, which was so impressive looking that they even replayed it. It didn't have to be long term selling (and he did sell the arm after the first cross arm breaker and the stuff in the ropes) but since the finish followed directly from it, it would have been nice. The rest of the selling was really great, both Santo's leg selling early on and then Casas' full body selling late in the match, including his arms draping away on the Camel Clutch attempt. Great stuff.

Did he get anything more than 2-3 minutes long? He certainly was good at inspiring crowd support in those matches and getting them behind him as they're usually based on him trying to break out of a hold. (I may or may not be serious: I don't even know anymore).

He's as good at timing cutoffs as anyone I've ever seen.

Sometime about a year from now I'll have a big post.

How much of them in the 70s do we actually have, Kevin?

What do you think of his 90-91 WWF run? The performance at Survivor Series 90, the Desert Storm matches, etc.

It's good of you to go and back up your nomination. I'm not nearly as harsh on your choice as some people. That said, if, as a community, we haven't put 100 better wrestlers in front of you (Even by some of the criteria that you laud Warrior upon) by the time the voting happens, then I'll be a little surprised.

I don't think this is a conversation worth having, to be honest. Whoever nominated him should probably say something, though.

He'd probably make my 500. He could follow direction. He had a lot of energy. He believed in what he was doing which came through in his work (much like Sid). He was insanely fun to watch on the apron in a tag match. Yep, he'd make my 500.

Patterns.

OJ, should I follow the order you present here or what? I want to start watching some WoS and I don't necessarily want to watch the best matches before I can appreciate the style. What's the best way to get my feet wet and build up to what I should be seeing? I'm okay making this a long-term investment if it means doing it the best way.

I think emoting is a better way to put it.

I don't use any sort of rating for matches nor do I keep any sort of master list. I do comment a lot and write things up and can search here and DVDVR but in general I either remember something or I don't. I tried to start using the blog function here to keep track of matches for the GOAT but that hasn't gone so well so far.

I'm sold. Not that it does anyone much good.

Mike Jackson? I'm gathering matches.

You're talking medium-long term storytelling, not within a single match itself, right?

You point me to a bunch of 1993 CMLL and I'll do my best. How complete is our footage? Who's even still in CMLL in 1993? I think that might be legally dismissable as an exception since they had just bled out with the talent and front office loss?

Which just adds to the shitty feeling of "this is not a triumph." This almost feels like the sort of payoff that should kill a territory to me. The best moment was when Chigusa hugged the ref at the very end though. That was heartwarming. The nebbish scholarly bullied scribe was able to find his courage and help the heroine stand up to the bully and together they vanquished her, at least for today, etc.

I know where this leads: Parv is going to quantum leap into Sean Mooney's body (he has the ability but only into Sean Mooney for some reason) in order to stop Dunn once and for all so that Ric Flair could wear his robe in Fall of 1991 thus changing history for the better.

That's fair. I think that, for starters, I never used that analogy before and I'm only using it here in this specific way because that's what this felt like to me, and in that regard it (Being the build and the general feel of what they were going for with everything right up until the bell rang) appealed to me, maybe because it's an element I DON'T see in a lot of other wrestling? With lucha, you know I've been watching a lot of stuff on a week to week basis and while that can be frustrating, I do think I've found more in the way of serialized storytelling within the matches than I was expecting. It's in the work itself which is a side effect of the same guys working each other for months. It's not nearly as well thought out as I'd like though. I do think because not a lot of people in our circle look at lucha in this way (instead of trying to hit great matches, which is a probably more rewarding way to do it, to be honest, especially considering the footage lapses), I'm not sure if this element isn't somewhat underestimated? That said, I sure do like to amuse myself.

I watched the second Chigusa/Dump hair match. Diminishing returns played in a little, but only a little. I've got various things I want to talk about. The build is something I love, and the reason for it is because it's so outlandish. It's sort of like the world's most violent episode of Jem. I don't even like sports much. I don't. I don't want real sports build in my wrestling, not often. Sometimes it works because it's logical, but that's the only reason why I ever like it, because I like logical narratives. I want stories. I want narratives. I want fiction that is true to itself. I said before that I, when younger (and now with my kid too), watched a lot of anime, and that's very much what I liken this to. It was like a high school drama where you had the bully who has been driven to extremes but really just wants to be loved terrorizing the school, and all of the teachers (or in this case the officials and the ref) and no one can stand up to her but the one student with a huge heart and endless courage. It's that. Just with, you know, scissors and a chain (though that's not out of the realm of possibility for those either). What we have here then is this strange intersection of over the top, pure pop storytelling and this obscenely visceral "real" exploitative violence. The match itself. The structure was fine. Dump spits the Water(malt whisky?) in Chigusa's face to begin which KOs the immediate revenge element. It's all pretty minimalist. Ref threatening and violence. A few concealed weapon shots. A piledriver. The people outside trying to stop the carnage when they can only to suffer for their trouble. The hope spots all mean so much: Chigusa gets one sole comeback because the ref found the courage to stand up to Dump. Later, after the cut off, she moves out of the ring and walks around the barricade to draw more strength from the crowd. Dump comes after her with a chain though. She powers up out of a bear hug because the fans cheer for her and chant her name once the hold is locked on which is beautiful babyface wrestling. Dump pulls her off the ropes and puts her right back in it but she has the power of the fans within her now and she puts on the Scorpion with a brutally bloody face. It's to no avail though. The match cycles to a repeat of the end of the previous one. Dump brings in an object, forces Chigusa down, prances around the ring in victory, but this time Chigusa beats the count, hits a quick roll up, and the ref ignores the shoulder being blatantly up for three because it's the right thing to do. I didn't love the finish. It was good for a second match out of three, maybe, but there was no sense at all that Dump couldn't have just killed her. She had her comeuppance because of her arrogance (and maybe because the ref found his courage due to Chigusa) but you got the sense that she was playing with Chigusa the whole time and since wrestling isn't a story that ends, necessarily, that next time she got her hands on her, she'd kill her dead. It felt like a fluke, not like something meaningful that was built to. Maybe that was a way of keeping Dump's heat but it wasn't satisfying at all. Now, were this some sort of drama meant for the core audience, here's what would happen: Dump would reluctantly admit respect for Chigusa after this, stemming from the fact that she wasn't just a popular girl, but that she was TOUGH to have beat the ten count. Like I said, all Dump really ever wanted, like any true bully, was to be loved. Bull would see this as a sign of weakness, and more than that, as outright blasphemy, because while Dump was organically created, Bull was a monster of her own making, someone that Dump shaped into the person she had become. She turns on Dump, takes the faction, and Chigusa makes the save, which would then lead into some sort of crazy reluctant tag of Chigusa and Dump, with the former offering true friendship to the latter (which is a huge trope for this sort of thing) against Bull and someone even more visibly monstrous like, I don't know, Mad Maxine. I don't think that happened though.

I have a lot of 04-10 or so Rey to watch.