Best Worker in the World in the '80's

[jdw]

jdw can't even bring himself to call Flair a "great" worker. He uses the term "very good".

 

Now now, you know that's not fair and not the case. I just called him great a couple of weeks ago in the Flipped thread:

 

Flair: thought he was the greatest thing in wrestling and always was glued to the TV if there was a chance to watch him. Now... if I never see another of his matches (other than things from the 70s that bubble up), I'd be okay with that. Still think he was "great". Just tired of watching him, and he his stuff in his "prime" doesn't entertain me at all. Of course there is no way to avoid his stuff, so I'm stuck.

That sums up my current thoughts on him as briefly as possible, with great tossed in. That also was in the middle of other discussions where the board (i.e. me) was taking about tossing around the word "great" a little loosely, for example in myself not being able to say Arn was up there in what I consider "great". I reserve it for guys like Ric.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

On a side note: jdw, you count Basement Tapes for 75? You know they were recorded between Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding right? I tend to think of it in there chronologically.

 

I was thinking of 1989 - "holy trinity" of Flair/ Steamboat matches = holy trinity of Bob albums (BABH, H61, BoB)

[Matt D]

I guess it's silly at this point but what are some examples of Flair matches with great storytelling throughout/smart working? Not because I think they don't exist, but because there's a lot of stuff I still haven't seen and I'd like to see it. The best I can think of off the top of my head are some Flair vs underdog matches where he underestimates the young lion babyface, who gets some offense until flair gets mad.

[JerryvonKramer]

^ His matches vs. Sam Houston on Will's awesome 4 Horsemen set that I've seen so far follow that story pretty well.

[Loss]

jdw can't even bring himself to call Flair a "great" worker. He uses the term "very good".

 

Now now, you that's not fair and not the case. I just called him great a couple of weeks ago in the Flipped thread:

 

Flair: thought he was the greatest thing in wrestling and always was glued to the TV if there was a chance to watch him. Now... if I never see another of his matches (other than things from the 70s that bubble up), I'd be okay with that. Still think he was "great". Just tired of watching him, and he his stuff in his "prime" doesn't entertain me at all. Of course there is no way to avoid his stuff, so I'm stuck.

That sums up my current thoughts on him as briefly as possible, with great tossed in. That also was in the middle of other discussions where the board (i.e. me) was taking about tossing around the word "great" a little loosely, for example in myself not being able to say Arn was up there in what I consider "great". I reserve it for guys like Ric.

 

John

 

I missed that post, I'll apologize for that. I know "I think Ric was a very good worker in the 80s" is a line I had seen you toss around a few times.

[FLIK]

When the poll was done at SC, the only two wrestlers to appear on every single ballot were Benoit and Guerrero.

Yeah, you had to love this protest voter:

 

48 Ric Flair

48 Jushin Thunder Liger

48 Toshiaki Kawada

48 Jumbo Tsuruta

 

Joined by one voter on these two:

 

47 Mitsuharu Misawa

47 Kenta Kobashi

 

 

John

 

Heh, i'd be that voter re Kawada, Jumbo, Misawa & Kobashi. I had Flair #24, Liger #29 on my ballot. Almost 6 years later my list would be a LOT diffrent (as i'm sure everyone's would) but not entirely sure if i'd have either of those two any higher. Kobashi would make my list for sure now though not in the top 50, Misawa MAYBE but no guarantee. Jumbo & Kawada I still wouldn't give a second thought to. Like both but not near to that level, just never been a big 90's All Japan fan.

[Tim Evans]

I used to be a huge Flair fan till I saw those shitty Terry Taylor matches from the Mid South set. Will's Sets really opened my eyes to a lot of guys. Some that are probably better than Flair.

[jdw]

On a side note: jdw, you count Basement Tapes for 75? You know they were recorded between Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding right? I tend to think of it in there chronologically.

My comment was "+ Basement Tapes vibe mixed in (going back to vintage Steamboat feud)".

 

BotT came out in 1975, as did Basement Tapes. The "vibe" with Flair was him rerunning a major famous feud from his prime: Flair-Steamer, brought back in 1989 to fans who wanted to see it. Akin to the long bootlegs Basement Tapes getting an official release finally.

 

 

I was thinking of 1989 - "holy trinity" of Flair/ Steamboat matches = holy trinity of Bob albums (BABH, H61, BoB)

I put BotT in their class.

 

Ric's "prime" as a worker was as a touring champ making all sorts of local guys look great. In 1989, he was four years into being a House Champion working against the same opponents every night for months on end. In 1989, he had great material to work with (Steamer and Funk). In 1986-88, it was mixed and lesser. Some highpoints, and some marginal things. That was akin to the less than off the charts stuff Bob did between BoB and BotT... though there were plenty of good songs even in that period.

 

John

[jdw]

I missed that post, I'll apologize for that. I know "I think Ric was a very good worker in the 80s" is a line I had seen you toss around a few times.

Think I said that about Arn.

 

I've said a number of times that one can be critical of things you think are great. It doesn't mean you think they're dogshit. I've said that about Flair and Kobashi. I've largely tried to get people to:

 

* see that Flair isn't perfect in the ring

* that a lot of positive things said about Flair don't actually track with how he worked

* that a lot of negative things said about other workers can be applied to Flair

 

One of my favorites was one of the Torch writers putting over the psych of Flair in the Dusty match in the Flair DVD. What he wrote was staggeringly at odds with the match that he was talking about... to the point that either he didn't watch the match, or he had zero understanding of match/work analysis. The discussion that followed on the Torch boards was pretty funny. Too bad it was the old Torch Boards because I'd love to re-read it.

 

John

[jdw]

I used to be a huge Flair fan till I saw those shitty Terry Taylor matches from the Mid South set. Will's Sets really opened my eyes to a lot of guys. Some that are probably better than Flair.

I remember those Flair-Taylor matches being pimped as non-Flair Matches. We watched the more pimped of the two at a KOC... and at the time I didn't think there was anything in them that I hadn't seen from Ric before. I don't recall thinking they were shitty, but instead just really boring... which is hard to rate since at the time I found pretty much everything of Ric's was boring. :/

 

John

[El-P]

I didn't think Flair was N°1 ten years ago, nothing has changed for me. I don't remember where I put him on my list, I guess he was top ten, but I'm not even sure considering a number of strong joshi picks sliding into the top ten. Can't access to my archives at this point, but I'm positive Flair wasn't in my top 5.

 

As far as only considering peak, it's just like looking at great matches only, it paints an incomplete picture. Of course peak is very important, just like great matches, but saying everything that happens before or after is only "bonus" and shouldn't be taken in account just doesn't work to me because it's ignoring the work of some guys whose post-peak has been excellent in favor of the perennial favourites. It's not like it works against Flair all the time either, when comparing Flair and Fujinami, Flair's case becomes the stronger when you look at some of his post peak work from 92 to 96, as Fuji really didn't do much of anything after the injury. He never got quite as bad as Flair in the 00's, but damn was he boring to death after one point. If you consider only peak vs peak, then Fuji has a case of being better than Flair.

[ohtani's jacket]

Why would anyone be surprised that Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero were the only picks on everyone's list? They were internet darlings at the time.

[El-P]

Finally seriously watching some UWF, I'm realizing how awesome Kazuo Yamazaki already was early in his career. This guy would probably get really close to the top 10 for me.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm edging towards saying it's Jumbo.

[Kostka]

I'm with Jerry on this. I came away from the All Japan set (finished two weeks ago) a bigger advocate of Jumbo as a GOAT contender than I did coming in, and coming in I had seen his 70s work against Funk, Race, Robinson, Brisco, his early 90s work and the most famous Jumbo-Tenryu matches from the 80s, but now that I have a big picture of his career, his resume stacks up against anyone in wrestling history. He's my pick for best Japanese guy ever, anyway.

[JerryvonKramer]

What are people thinking about Sgt. Slaughter at the moment? Is he top 10?

 

Also, the original conversation here revolved around Flair, Lawler, and Jumbo. What about Tully Blanchard?

[Dylan Waco]

I love Tully, but he's a guy who at absolute best rounds out a top ten.

 

Sarge is great, but I don't think I'd have him top ten either at this point.

[JerryvonKramer]

Care to elaborate Dylan? Who is getting in the Top 10 ahead of Tully and Sarge?

[Dylan Waco]

Looking at the whole feel that I could reasonably see contending for a top ten (and doing this totally off the top of my head and in no order) you've got: Savage, Martel, Morton, Eaton, Steamboat, Funk, Rose, Bockwinkel, Blackwell, Lawler, Dundee, Backlund, Valentine, Flair, Fujiwara, Fujinami, Choshu, Tenryu, Jumbo, Hansen, Dibiase, Hennig, Satanico, El Dandy, La Fiera, Sangre Chicana, Gordy, Ron Garvin, Murdoch, Windham, Saito, Maeda, Kimura, Sarge and Tully.

 

I may be forgetting a few in there and you could quibble with a few names here or there, but all of those names are guys I could realistically see in someone's top ten. I left off of the Joshi women not as a slight, but because I really haven't watched any of it in years, but you could probably add at least three or four more names to it from that category as well.

 

Looking at that list I don't see how he could make my top ten. Even if I wiped out Lucha (which I would never do) I don't see how he makes it. But I could see how he might make the bottom run of someone's top ten.

 

Do I think it would be crazy for someone to have him top five? Not really, but it would be an outlier and I'm not sure it would be easy to defend and this is coming from someone who has been accused of overrating Tully in the past.

[JerryvonKramer]

Here's something I wonder: does familiarity breed contempt? Or let me put it another way, is there still -- even now -- among a certain breed of fan, an exoticism about Japanese and Mexican wrestling -- which extends now to the more obscure territories -- that doesn't extend to the big two?

 

i.e. that it's easier to get excited about a Jerry Blackwell than it is about Tully who we've known about for years.

 

I'm not necessarily laying that claim at your door, I'm just putting the idea out there that Tully might have a harder time making it into a top 10 than some other guys, despite his shedload of great matches and performances.

 

Of the 37 workers Dylan names there, who has higher or more high-end matches than Sarge or Tully? If matches are the only barometer, does Savage?

[Dylan Waco]

Here's something I wonder: does familiarity breed contempt? Or let me put it another way, is there still -- even now -- among a certain breed of fan, an exoticism about Japanese and Mexican wrestling -- which extends now to the more obscure territories -- that doesn't extend to the big two?

 

i.e. that it's easier to get excited about a Jerry Blackwell than it is about Tully who we've known about for years.

 

I'm not necessarily laying that claim at your door, I'm just putting the idea out there that Tully might have a harder time making it into a top 10 than some other guys, despite his shedload of great matches and performances.

 

Of the 37 workers Dylan names there, who has higher or more high-end matches than Sarge or Tully? If matches are the only barometer, does Savage?

There are two separate questions here.

 

The first I think is an attempt to articulate a point that is not irrelevant but is overdone by some who are reflexively hostile to what they view as "revisionist" thinking. Do people get tired of "old" things and hype up things that are "newer" to them? Yes. Does that in and of itself mean that one can not fairly analyze the "old" in relation to the "new?" No. Of course it is possible to overrate the new at the expense of the older and that is common. But that is somewhat contextual. How much Tully had you watched prior to the Horseman set and your podcast projects? How do we know you aren't hyping up something that is newer to you at the expense of the older more "familiar" stuff you've seen in the past? I'm more interested in why you think he is a great on the level of the guys mentioned in this thread than whether or not your views on him may be benefiting some because you are more well versed in his career than you were five years ago.

 

Exoticism is a relative term that I'd rather not use. Hell there are some would argue that your interest in non-Brit wrestling is innately "exotic" even though your fandom has always been directly tied to the American product. I'm less averse to a discussion of obscurity, but I think that is something you have to look at in context too. Different things are obscure to different people.

 

The second question about matches is interesting. I really don't think Sarge does well on the metric of depth of great matches. Sarge's strengths are that his best matches are all time greats and he tended to have solid performances where you could see his mechanical strengths shine even when the bouts were incomplete, not competitive, really short, et. But I don't see any case for him having a deeper pool of great matches than Savage, even sticking just to the 80's. He's got Final Conflict, the Starrcage 85 main event, a couple of tremendous matches with Sheik, the great Otto Wanz match no one has seen......some love the Backlund Cage Match, but I don't think it's a great match and even granting that to him for the sake of argument it's hard to see how he gets over the half dozen mark of great matches. Savage has great matches with Lawler, Steamboat (multiple), Tito(multiple), Bret and arguably Hogan. These are all singles matches and not all gimmick matches unlike with Sarge. If you go the next level down to good/very good matches the gap really widens in Sarge's favor. I really doubt anyone would even dispute that to be honest. At best Sarge is "even" with Savage in terms of sheer number of great matches in the 80's, with Sarge having the edge in terms of who's best matches were better. But that's granting a LOT of latitude to Sarge and ignores that Savage had many more good matches. Anyhow the point is that even by the standards of the metric you've set Sarge doesn't stack up as clearly better.

 

On Tully? You've watched a lot of Tully recently - make the case. What are his great matches and where is the depth? The best of the Garvin matches is about as good a match as I've seen from the 80's in the States and of course there is Magnum in the Cage. But give us more on this metric. Tag matches included of course. By no means am I saying he doesn't have the depth. I'm just saying it would be more interesting to me if you made the case. I could, can, have and will make the case for Buddy Rose and others. Do the same for Tully.

 

I don't think Tully looks out of place with those names I mentioned. I could see him right in the meat of those names - above many and below many. Top five? Seems like a stretch and a pretty big one.

[Matt D]

Great Matches. Ptui.

 

I need to write a lot of words about Bockwinkel soon.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think that's a fair reply Dylan. And you're right to mention that my having seen a lot of Tully of late means that that he's on my mind more than other guys at the moment.

 

First to the point I made about "exoticism", I was actually thinking of a phenomena from being a football fan ("soccer") in the 90s. In the 1990s, and still to an extent now, if your name is something like Demetrio Albertini or Romario or anything vaguely "continental" sounding, that's a lot more exciting than being called Des Walker or Steve Bruce. And it comes with a host of unspoken assumptions not only about the player's ability but also about the player's type. You assume the "fancier" sounding continental players will be more technically skillful but perhaps less physically imposing. You assume the English players with "plain" names possess talents like "grit and determination". It's continental (or South American skill) vs. English brute force. There's was a mystique about foreign players and a mundane feeling about English players. To an extent, that has subsided today as everyone is mostly exposed to all different types of players all the time. But the old stereotypes still persist to an extent, partly of course because they are true.

 

I was suggesting that something approaching this exists in wrestling. Back in the 1990s, there WAS a mystique about Japanese wrestlers. You might have never seen a Fujiwara match in your life, but the fact this dude is called Fujiwara already means that in your mind he's got to be the best thing ever. Obviously, I'm not accusing anyone here of still thinking like that. But there is ... the residue of that thought still sort of persisting somewhere. I mean it might not be explicit or easy to spot, but it is there somewhere right? Just like there is the idea that a random Brazilian footballer is probably more skillfull than a random English footballer. I'm not necessarily going anywhere with this, just a thing I wonder about that's all.

 

Re: specifics. I agree that Tully has a stronger case than Sarge. I have to give a lecture tomorrow morning or else I'd stay up putting a match-list together. All I'll say is, since doing the podcasts with soup23, which you mentioned, he's legitimately been up for MVP each and every show he's been on.

 

http://jerryvonkramer.ipage.com/podcast/wh...-award-results/

 

I don't have the results for Great American Bash 87 up yet (Tuesday probably), but Chad picked him again for MVP there (*I think* I picked Jimmy Garvin). So out of 10 shows in total, he was on the card 8 times and of those he's been picked to be MVP by at least one person 5 times.

 

This does throw something up though. You'll notice that he didn't necessarily have the match of the night every single time he was picked as MVP. Do we take things like that into consideration: for example, standing out on a bad card?

[Victator]

Tully and Arn had a really good match with Mighty Wilbur. Who at his best was not very good.

[ohtani's jacket]

Living in Japan for six and a half years will cure you of that exoticism.

 

I don't see the point in comparing Tully with a lucha worker or a Brit or whoever tickles my fancy unless that worker happens to remind me of Tully in some way. I know Tully is awesome, just like I know which lucha workers and Brits are awesome. A lot of consensus opinions are boring and need taking down a peg or two. I'm not whether Tully being awesome is consensus, but it isn't boring.