Forgotten Good Workers/"Hey I Thought This Guy Was Supposed To Suck?"

[kjh]

thanks in large part to Mero prostituting himself by letting her embarrass him, even kick his ass, on a fairly regular basis.

Prostituting himself ? What ? The Mero household made shitload of money being on the road and working *together*, and probably having a blast doing so. I don't see how he embarrassed himself, it was just business. I hated Sable as much as the next guy, but the Marvelous Marc interactions were actually fun.

Yeah, I thought Mero vs. Sable was a fun storyline at the time too. I was just explaining the mentality of a lot of guys in the business towards Mero letting his wife kick his ass on national TV.

[tigerpride]

Foley has said he was basically bitter that Mero made more money than he did, but he's not bitter anymore

[FLIK]

That reminds me that I never saw those Maekawa/Nakanishi matches in 2001 that people loved at the time.

I have a dreadful memory of a Hotta cage match that went one hour. One hour of Yumiko Hotta in 2001, the horror. AJW had a few good stuff on the big shows, but it was mostly thanks to veterans freelancers coming back.

 

Not a full hour but close, like 50 or so. Hotta & Ito did twice actually. The cage match sucked ass but the earlier street fight was great, one of my favorite matches ever.

[Strummer]

Foley has said he was basically bitter that Mero made more money than he did, but he's not bitter anymore

 

Foley mentioned this on Stern in 99 or so. He was jealous that Marc negotiated himself that fat contract and that Rena Mero was the most talentless person to ever make a million dollars. The Foleys and Meros were actually friends in WCW and held parties/functions together

[El-P]

thanks in large part to Mero prostituting himself by letting her embarrass him, even kick his ass, on a fairly regular basis.

Prostituting himself ? What ? The Mero household made shitload of money being on the road and working *together*, and probably having a blast doing so. I don't see how he embarrassed himself, it was just business. I hated Sable as much as the next guy, but the Marvelous Marc interactions were actually fun.

Yeah, I thought Mero vs. Sable was a fun storyline at the time too. I was just explaining the mentality of a lot of guys in the business towards Mero letting his wife kick his ass on national TV.

 

Oh, sorry about that then. I'm slow sometimes...

[Dylan Waco]

Working my way through the Texas Set and I think Killer Khan belongs here. I absolutely loved Khan's work on the NJPW Set as well. I would say he is one of the all time best with facial expressions in wrestling history as he has a wide gamut of stuff he can convey with just simple looks.

 

Thinking about it more Sakaguchi is another person I would rate here. I know the committee involved said he benefitted big time from the selection process but he was a guy that I had always assumed was pretty awful. On that set at least he was very good and at times great especially in tags and when called upon to play big man v. little man with guys like Yamazaki.

[JerryvonKramer]

I don't think he ever reached the level of "he sucks", but Paul Orndorff is underrated in my book. The guy was solid in the ring, and had one of the best programs with Hogan ever. Is he a WON hall of famer?

I think his WCW does is very overlooked. He has a great intensity, and even has quite a decent falls count anywhere match vs. Cactus Jack. I think Orndorff after he came back from the injury is sort of "forgotten".

 

As for all the praise of Dustin Rhodes during his "natural" period, I find him quite a boring worker to be honest. I mean even with a very good opponent, the matches tend towards being a bit dull. And that King of the Road match against Blacktop Bully on the truck is a contender for worst of all time. I find Dustin Rhodes very middling to be honest.

 

As for forgotten workers, how about Alex Wright? He had a lame gimmick ("Das Wunderkind") but he was not bad at all.

 

Here are a few other guys I'd be interested to know what people think of in general:

 

Tom Zenk

The Orient Express (Sato and Tanaka)

Maxx Payne

Shanghai Pierce

Haku / Meng

Craig Pittman

Dick Slater

 

Just interested to know what people make of these guys.

[rzombie1988]

Well Haku is a huge internet favorite and one of my favorite wrestlers and I don't think anyone would say Badd Company sucked.

[JerryvonKramer]

Which version of the Orient Express do you think was better, the Sato/ Tanaka one or the Kato/ Tanka one (aka Badd Company)?

 

While we're on this subject, what do people think of the early 80s Mr. Fuji/ Mr. Saito team?

[Dylan Waco]

Tom Zenk is the epitome of boring

[El-P]

The Godwinns do suck and should be forgotten.

[S.L.L.]

Dick Slater was pretty great. I don't get the sense that he's underrated by the people who talk about him, but he doesn't enter into the conversation that often, either.

[El-P]

Yeah, Slater was really good, and the only criticism I ever heard about him is the Nise Terry Funk argument.

Maxx Payne didn't had much opportunity to shine, but I think it's safe to say he was pretty good. I wish he had showed up in ECW. I also wish his behind the scene footage would eventually show up somewhere.

[subatomic_elbow]

I was happy to see Alex Wright get a mention. When I was watching WCW Saturday Night, Alex was one of my favorites. I always dug that he had a different way of moving and selling as everyone else. If the WWE wanted to, they could totally package Gabriel the same way, post Corre.

[Victator]

Godwins were not a bad team. Okay as faces and good as heels.

[Guest hack myers]

On offense, heat suck, especially noticable at points like the January 1995 tag draw: a really heated crowd would go down a notch and kind of get across that they were hoping he'd tag the shorter guy, at which point things picked up for them.

Having seen the match several times I really don't know where you got that impression from. He certainly didn't "suck" in that match, or else it would have gone in the toilet whenever he was called on to do something. Granted, that match isn't on the same tier as the 5/94, 6/95 and 10/95 iterations of the match, but it's still high-end and has a hell of a lot going for it.

 

I actually thought the match headed towards the toilet at times late when he was on offense. He was effective in eating Kobashi and Misawa's offense, which covers for a lot since they'd eventually cut his weak offense off and take over. Plus it wasn't terribly complicated: most of their offense was rather over.

 

I'll be happy to rewatch the match. I suspect you have the 60 minute version up. Lord knows where my tape of it is buried in some box... if you have a link, PM it to me and I'll watch it this weekend and point out what I thought were pretty obvious points where Taue was well below the level of the other three, and where the crowd checked out on him.

 

 

Bad workers do things like botch important spots, lose track of where the match should go, get winded, etc.

I think that's a limited way to look at bad workers, or bad work.

 

He didn't do any of those things. Least guy in the match, yes. Added the least to the match's quality, yes. But suck, nooooooo.

I think in that stretch of late 1994 through early 1995 he started to suck in an All Japan context, especially at the level where he was working. There's another match in that period where Kawada & Taue worked against the Can-Ams that was a pretty staggering contrast to the Tag League match in the period between Misawa & Kobashi and the Can-Ams.

 

 

That has always been my biggest qualm with your epic AJ '90s rundown. In fact it might be my only real one.

Again, I was far more tolerant of Taue than my peers in the early 90s and actually defended his spot & push when most hardcores wanted him to just go away. I was probably the first to start pointing that he'd improved massively at the Carny, then hammered across the point of Misawa-Taue Triple Crown vs Mutoh-Hash G-1 Final that aired the same weekend as evidence that Taue hadn't just improved, but actually turned into a really good worker. I might have been the only one who *hated* Kobashi taking the TC from Taue as almost overnight after winning the belts, Taue seemed to start carrying himself with an aura of "Yeah, I reached the point where deserve these fuckers" which was really interesting to watch, and something that I'm not sure if Kobashi every really had that same aura until NOAH. It was really annoying to see that dased in just two months, though it's a damn fun element of the Tag League Final that it was Kawada that played (rather exceptionally) to having "doubts" while Taue came across as the completely confident, sure one... which he played really well.

 

So I tend to think that my rep as a Taue-Hater is overplayed, a bit like my rep as a Flair-Hater... not to mention that I was considered the chief Kobashi-Hater and Toyota-Hater back in the 90s.

 

Wait... looking back at the Pimping Post, the negative comments about Taue seem to be limited to this:

 

Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue (1/24/95 ­ World Tag Titles)

 

One of the more overrated matches of the decade. Taue just wasn't any good. Of their 9 matches against each other from 6/93 to 12/95, this rates with the 12/95 Tag League Final as the least likely to hit my VCR at any point soon. I felt just like the crowd did every time Taue tagged in - "NO!?!? TOSH.... NO!!! STAY IN!!! AW FUCK!!!"

 

NOTE: The following match should be on the list - 10/15/95 Kawada & Taue vs. Misawa & Kobashi (World Tag Title)

 

This is the 60:00 draw that is vastly better than the 1/95 60:00 draw between the two teams. Why? Taue sucked in 1/95. Taue was excellent by 10/95. This will probably make my Top 20... simply because I seem to be the only person who's seen it and is willing to pimp it. Someone needs to carry the flag for it against the heathens who think the 1/95 match is any good.

I do point out that the first Misawa-Taue TC match doesn't deserve votes, largely to get across a match that hadn't even been nominated at that point: their 9/95 TC match.

 

There's much more positive stuff about Taue in the thread. There were a were at least four Taue singles matches I added to the nomination list that weren't getting any run (that 9/95 Misawa-Taue, the 3/95 Taue vs. Kobashi, 4/95 Kawada vs. Taue and 4/96 Taue vs Williams). I could have added more if the intent was simply "stuff people should watch" rather than matches I thought might get Top 20 votes from people, such as the Taue-Kawada singles match when they were heated rivals. Didn't think they'd draw any votes at the time, and they weren't making my final ballot.

 

Wait...

 

It looks like I was the only person to put the 9/95 Taue-Misawa on my ballot:

 

16. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue (Carnival 95 Final - 4/15/95) 115 points

41. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue (Triple Crown - 5/24/96) 26

58. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue (Triple Crown - 7/25/97) 14

88. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue (Triple Crown - 9/10/95) 4

97. Steve Williams vs. Akira Taue (Carnival 96 Final - 4/96) 1

 

Those are all of the Taue singles that made the ballot... Yikes!

 

I'm guessing that's my fault: people hated Taue because I put over things like 9/95, had pushed the 4/95 Kawada-Taue for years, and said nice things about Doc-Taue... so they voted for the Misawa-Taue matches that I pimped less. So much for influence... it was already dead in 2000.

 

John

 

On the subjeck of Taue, I've been watching a bunch of early 90's AJPW and I find him very good if not great. His selling I find is excellent in the tags and multi man tags when he teamed with guys like Jumbo and Fuchi. He's used as the young guy who's sort of raised by the heels and has to pay his dues before being that giant and frightening tag partner of kawada in the holy demon army. So in those tags with Jumbo and Fuchi I feel like he's being put in there to survive so as to prove himself to the older heels. He does an excellent job of selling and taking a beating in these matches. In one tag with Jumbo the crowd starts cheering his name even though he's the heel. I think that shows how good of a job his selling was during that period. Another thing is he's very good at match structure and keeping the match together when he's in there. I never feel that the match is losing it's pace or getting out of tune when he's in. He does a good job of working on the FIPs because his offense is devasting enough for that. So really I feel that early 90's taue was a guy who was put in these tags with jumbo and fuchi to help build him up as a monster for the eventual team with kawada and I think he does a great job for what he was used for.

[jdw]

I don't think the plan ever was for him to team with Kawada until Jumbo got sick.

 

Taue got put on Jumbo's team because Yatsu and Kabuki left, which took away the Old Guys (Jumbo & Yatsu/Kabuki & Fuchi & Inoue & Ogawa) vs Young Guys (Misawa & Kawada & Taue & Kobashi & Kikichi) dynamic. Jumbo needed a partner, and it worked to give him a protege. The pecking order was through the entire feud:

 

1. Jumbo

2. Misawa

3. Kawada

4. Taue

5. Kobashi

6. Fuchi

7. Kikuchi

8. Ogawa

 

Which gave you:

 

1. Jumbo

4. Taue

6. Fuchi

8. Ogawa

 

2. Misawa

3. Kawada

5. Kobashi

7. Kikuchi

 

Not *perfectly* balanced, since Kobashi didn't have a true rival in it and instead was trying to prove himself against Jumbo and chasing Taue for the #4 spot (which he didn't get until 1996/97).

 

Taue never really was being built to be a monster. Hell, he wasn't a monster when he started teaming with Kawada. It simply was this:

 

#1 Misawa & #4 Kobashi vs #2 Kawada & #3 Taue

 

With the imbalance coming again in that the #5 (Akiyama) didn't really have a true #6 rival (since they screwed up with Omori).

 

In that role for nearly two years, Taue wasn't the monster, but instead the guy who:

 

* lost his main rival Kawada who (i) became his senior partner and (ii) the guy chasing Misawa's #1 spot

* was more directly compared to Kobashi than before

 

John