Best Worker in the World in the '80's

[Loss]

Tapes used to cost $20 a pop. I have no idea how assholes back then were able to keep up without going bankrupt.

 

Lowering of costs is as much an issue as availability of footage. Yes, Fujiwara stuff was out there. Lawler stuff was too. It's not about footage availability, it's about practicality.

[El-P]

Where was this? I frequented just about every major board during that period and while it is theoretically possible there were one or two guys calling him the GOAT (as I was one of two or three guys who would put Funk in that conversation at the time) it was by no means a large group of people or block of people or a narrative that was widely held/talked about at the time.

I have no idea. Way too long ago. I just remember that I was a total newbie on japanese wrestling and that one of the name that jumped to my eyes as being talked as a GOAT worker was Jumbo, along with Liger, Misawa & Kawada. I knew Liger from NJ on Eurosport, the three others I had no idea who they were.

 

On Fujiwara the matches existed in circulation to some degree, but not in controlled format that was easy to purchase and view.

Agreed. The PWFG shows especially would be put on tapes along other japanese indy stuff and it would be very scattered.

 

I don't remember any "Best of Fujiwara collections" though it's possible they existed.

I don't remember either. Plenty of Tiger Mask and Sabu comp around at that time.

 

One of the most valuable things about the DVD comps that have exploded from 05 forward is that you can see career arcs of guys either on their own comp or through a chronological timeline in the promotion they were working in.

Yes. In a way I don't enjoy being a wrestling fan today because none of the current wrestling interests me, but in another way it's terrific to be a wrestling fan today thanks to the availability and ways to pass the footage around.

[ohtani's jacket]

Was the Jumbo thing really revisionist? Plenty of folks in Japan were calling Jumbo the strongest wrestler in Japanese history at the time of his death. As Jumbo footage became more widely disseminated, Americans started catching up to what Japanese fans already knew. I tend to think of revisionism more as new interpretations of available footage.

 

Setting that aside, since you're fond of the musical analogy, it's true that some people go through a grunge phase, a punk phase, and so on. But plenty of people discover the Beatles, decide they're the greatest shit ever, and never budge from that no matter what new stuff they come across. New discoveries don't necessarily lead to revised opinions.

Jumbo has never been regarded as the strongest Japanese wrestler. I'm not sure where you got that idea from. I have heard that at the Feb 1990 Supershow he got the loudest reaction and at that point was considered the MVP of Japanese professional wrestling, but I don't know if it's true. Anyway, we're really talking about what English speaking, Western fans think not Japanese fans. I don't buy Jerome's '98 memory. He's probably thinking of Other Arena or Frank Jewett or something. They were obviously ahead of the curve in that (from memory) Jewett had the Tenryu/Jumbo comp tape made that ended up circulating and being sold by people like Lorefice and Scott Mailman, etc., but I don't know whether that comp predated Jumbo's death nor do I think it's really important. It was the memorial tapes that kickstarted the Jumbo boom and I think Dean's Jumbo vs. Harley review in the DVDVR was more influential than the Other Arena crew as DVDVR had a greater reach. After that people got into AJPW Classics and Williams' DVDVR 90s pimping post and ballot were also highly influential.

 

If people are lifelong Beatles fans that's their business, but do people go around touting the best ever in other fields of entertainment? It seems a particular obsession of wrestling fans. If pushed I would name what I think is the greatest of all time in any other field, but it's not some badge of honour like it is with wrestling. I wonder if it's because wrestling fans spend more time talking about wrestling than watching it. Or maybe I don't move in the right circles in regard to my other hobbies. Wrestling sure has its sacred cows, though.

 

Regarding Fujiwara, neither shoot style nor 80s New Japan were widely watched by the swarm of new fans who got into Japanese wrestling late. They may have been watched by hardcores previously, but those people didn't make up a vocal presence on the internet from 1999 onwards in my experience. Fujiwara was not well regarded in real time, so to speak. You only have to look at Lorefice's site to get some idea of the dated opinions about shoot style and Fujiwara from the late 90s. I always kind of dug Fujiwara but began to seriously re-evaluate him with the failed Smarkschoice best matches ever initiative around five or six years ago. That was some glorious revisionism. Revisionism is a wonderful thing even if it may be disrespectful or sacrilegious at times.

 

Returning to your original point, I actually think we caught up with what Japanese fans already knew in regard to Fujinami and Choshu most recently.

[JerryvonKramer]

ohtani -- you might not get anything as crude as GOAT discussions in other fields, but most fields have their canons and sacred cows. Shakespeare in literature, Bob Dylan in pop music, Hitchcock or Kurosawa or Bergman or Welles in film -- the idea that pimping of incredibly canonical figures is unique to wrestling is surely wrong.

 

What I think happens in wrestling though is that wrestling fans don't think about wrestlers like they think about writers or directors, they think about them like sportsmen. The idea of a GOAT is more of a sports thing than an entertainment thing, and this is why it takes the form it does in wrestling.

[El-P]

Returning to your original point, I actually think we caught up with what Japanese fans already knew in regard to Fujinami and Choshu most recently.

One thing : who the fuck are "we" ? I warmed up to Choshu and Fujinami ten years ago when I began to watch shitloads of NJ TV. I guess my tastes are dated as far as Takada goes but are pretty well advanced as far as Fuji and Choshu go then.

 

I know people love to feel like they belong together in some sort of "rightful group of thoughts", but in the end this just doesn't concern me. The appearance and disapearance of new consensus is interesting only in term of the historiography of the GOAT discussions. Maybe my 98 memory alludes to The Other Arena (I don't think I stumble onto it that early though, as I was aware of DVDVR before tOA), but what the heck, if just a few people made good arguments for Jumbo back in the days, that was enough for me to say he was considered as a GOAT. Was it a consensus ? Maybe not, but the idea was already there.

[Loss]

The question about $20 tapes wasn't rhetorical, by the way. I'm genuinely curious how people afforded it.

[Childs]

ohtani -- you might not get anything as crude as GOAT discussions in other fields, but most fields have their canons and sacred cows. Shakespeare in literature, Bob Dylan in pop music, Hitchcock or Kurosawa or Bergman or Welles in film -- the idea that pimping of incredibly canonical figures is unique to wrestling is surely wrong.

 

What I think happens in wrestling though is that wrestling fans don't think about wrestlers like they think about writers or directors, they think about them like sportsmen. The idea of a GOAT is more of a sports thing than an entertainment thing, and this is why it takes the form it does in wrestling.

People love to talk about the greatest anything. There are tons of books, columns, discussion threads, etc. attempting to establish canon in film, pop music and any other kind of art. And yes, it's a particular obsession in sports coverage. If I wanted to inflame my newspaper's readers beyond reckoning, all I'd have to do is write a blog post saying Johnny Unitas wasn't one of the five greatest quarterbacks ever or that Cal Ripken was right when he said Adrian Beltre was a better third baseman than Brooks Robinson. People eat that shit up, so why should it be any different with wrestling?

[FLIK]

The question about $20 tapes wasn't rhetorical, by the way. I'm genuinely curious how people afforded it.

Small inheritance when I turned 18, no bills to pay

 

Plus i'd always get shit from Lynch in SLP mode on 8 hour tapes whear he'd combine several shows on them. So really it only worked out to like $6+ per show if it was your standard 2 hour tv block. I was ordering shows like every 2 weeks back then

 

For comparison, these days i'm so broke i'm lucky to have enough to spend on new dvds 2-3 times a year

[Dylan Waco]

The question about $20 tapes wasn't rhetorical, by the way. I'm genuinely curious how people afforded it.

 

I had very few responsibilities back then

[El-P]

The question about $20 tapes wasn't rhetorical, by the way. I'm genuinely curious how people afforded it.

 

I had very few responsibilities back then

 

The same.

 

(man, I gave so much money to Lorefice and Lynch between 1998 and 2003. If only I had known about the FUCKING INTERNET 2.0 COMING SOON back then, I would have waited a few years)

[FLIK]

Course, back then it's not like there was a choice either. There was no youtube, torrents or file hosting sites and you had to be super duper ultra mega bottom of the barrel deep into the sceen to know about the few direct download websites or ftp servers out thear that you could find a handfull of crappy VQ matches on.

 

Kinda made for better or atleast more conversation though back then, since ppl had a bigger need to seek out & express opinions on stuff when they were gonna have to pay to see it.

[evilclown]

Tapes were also traded frequently. If you made a few smart purchases they could be turned into a substantial collection fairly quickly. If you were an obsessive weirdo. I heard. From a guy.

 

re: Jumbo as a GOAT, I think that almost anyone who was serious about Japanese wrestling found there way into the cult of jdw and his opinion was as influential as anyone's outside of Meltzer's in that era.

[jdw]

Jumbo as the greatest of all-time was a revisionist trend in the first place.

 

Ninety percent of the people pimping him as the greatest didn't even know who he was until he was dead and even then it took a few years for the memorial tapes to circulate.

When was the GOAT poll? Jumbo died in 2000. I suspect that the majority of the people who voted for Jumbo in the GOAT poll (regardless of whether it was #1 or lower) knew who Jumbo was before he died. It wasn't like the voters in that poll all happened to discover puroresu in 2011. Certainly not 90%.

 

It's fine to say that Jumbo as GOAT is something that popped more than a decade after Flair as GOAT talk started (which was in full bore in the WON no later than 1986). But lets not talk out of our asses.

 

John

[jdw]

We've been over this before, but "Jumbo is the GOAT" was not even close to consensus when I first starting poking around online 17 or 18 years ago. Didn't really change until 99/00 as I recall.

Jewett was probably the first to roll it out as an idea, and only after Classics churned out a lot of matches where people were able to see the 70s stuff in addition to the 80s and 90s stuff. 99/00 sounds about the right time frame.

 

That he was an all-time great was thought of earlier than that. In 1990-92 he was generally compared to Flair as they were age peers, had been around for roughly as long, and were in generally similar roles: older wrestlers on top being challenged by younger guys.

 

But among smart fans (which we all are a continuation of) of our general age range (i.e. not guys who grew up watching the wrestlers of the 50s and 60s), there was a rather large consensus that Flair was the GOAT. Dave certainly banged that drum, and Dave shaped opinion.

[JerryvonKramer]

Would anyone object if I ran a new "best worker of the 80s" poll with around 20 different options?I am generally rather curious as to who would win.

[jdw]

The Flair negativity seems to have evened out. For a while, it was out of control. From what I gather, even those who no longer consider him GOAT still consider him a reasonable part of the conversation.

Actually, it never was out of control. Lord knows I have the rep for pointing out Flair's flaws. But I've also always said he was a great worker.

 

"Out of control" would be the equiv that happened to Angle and Toyota. People extremely critical of them won't even listen to arguments that they're "great".

 

That's coming from someone who has no love for Angle, and was annoyed by Toyota before... well... 100% of the other US joshi fans of the era. But the "hate" that I've seen tossed at the work of Angle and Toyota isn't remotely close to what's been tossed at Flair.

 

What happens is that when one of my/your/our favorites is criticized, it's the biggest thing in the world and the people critical are big meanies full of hate. When it's someone we don't give two shits about (say Ultimate Warrior), we kind of laugh about it and move along. So we remember the criticism of our favorite in sharp terms, like it's out of control. When really... it's not. The criticism of Flair really wasn't/isn't at the Angle/Toyota/Davey Richards level. His fans are just resistant to the criticism, a bit like those Davey Richards fans that folks like to drive crazy by pointing out what they see as his shitty work.

 

John

[jdw]

Where was this? I frequented just about every major board during that period and while it is theoretically possible there were one or two guys calling him the GOAT (as I was one of two or three guys who would put Funk in that conversation at the time) it was by no means a large group of people or block of people or a narrative that was widely held/talked about at the time.

I have no idea. Way too long ago. I just remember that I was a total newbie on japanese wrestling and that one of the name that jumped to my eyes as being talked as a GOAT worker was Jumbo, along with Liger, Misawa & Kawada. I knew Liger from NJ on Eurosport, the three others I had no idea who they were.

Again, if anyone was, it was Frank. But 1998 was probably a year too early since AJPW Classics was still just starting to churn things out. Then again, someone may want to look up when Dean reviewed Jumbo-Funk, Jumbo-Race and Jumbo-Rusher. I think those three along with Jumbo-Mil were the four matches from the 70s that got people thinking, along with folks thinking about Terry more (since he was extremely well rounded in that match).

 

Before that, he was generally thought of as an all-time great because that's the impression he went out on in 1990-92 when he was turning 40+.

 

John

[Loss]

The Flair negativity seems to have evened out. For a while, it was out of control. From what I gather, even those who no longer consider him GOAT still consider him a reasonable part of the conversation.

Actually, it never was out of control. Lord knows I have the rep for pointing out Flair's flaws. But I've also always said he was a great worker.

 

"Out of control" would be the equiv that happened to Angle and Toyota. People extremely critical of them won't even listen to arguments that they're "great".

 

That's coming from someone who has no love for Angle, and was annoyed by Toyota before... well... 100% of the other US joshi fans of the era. But the "hate" that I've seen tossed at the work of Angle and Toyota isn't remotely close to what's been tossed at Flair.

 

What happens is that when one of my/your/our favorites is criticized, it's the biggest thing in the world and the people critical are big meanies full of hate. When it's someone we don't give two shits about (say Ultimate Warrior), we kind of laugh about it and move along. So we remember the criticism of our favorite in sharp terms, like it's out of control. When really... it's not. The criticism of Flair really wasn't/isn't at the Angle/Toyota/Davey Richards level. His fans are just resistant to the criticism, a bit like those Davey Richards fans that folks like to drive crazy by pointing out what they see as his shitty work.

 

John

 

It stands out because Ric Flair invented spot fu on one hand and sat in holds in matches with Brody and Sting on the other hand. It was unclear what his critics wanted from him, as he was a little damned if he did, damned if he didn't. That's not say some of the criticism of Flair wasn't valid. I always thought you were fair, even when critical. But did Frank ever say anything complimentary about him? Did Chris Coey? Because I sure don't remember it if they did.

[El-P]

Again, if anyone was, it was Frank. But 1998 was probably a year too early since AJPW Classics was still just starting to churn things out.

Let me see. I remember ordering my first puro tapes in late 1998. I'd say October/November 1998. Maybe the argument was taking shape at the same time I was getting into puro, so as a newbie, to me it was gonna be new anyway and I wouldn't see the difference between a consensus opinion that had 10 years of history and the brand new consensus opinion that had two months of history and getting stronger by the months.

 

Then again, someone may want to look up when Dean reviewed Jumbo-Funk, Jumbo-Race and Jumbo-Rusher. I think those three along with Jumbo-Mil were the four matches from the 70s that got people thinking, along with folks thinking about Terry more (since he was extremely well rounded in that match).

I remember Jumbo vs Funk and Jumbo vs Mil, I'd say it was in 2000 or so. I think so because I used to print those damn DVDVR to read them on the train to Paris back then. I can picture myself reading about Jumbo vs Mil in the TGV for some reasons.

[jdw]

Anyway, we're really talking about what English speaking, Western fans think not Japanese fans. I don't buy Jerome's '98 memory. He's probably thinking of Other Arena or Frank Jewett or something. They were obviously ahead of the curve in that (from memory) Jewett had the Tenryu/Jumbo comp tape made that ended up circulating and being sold by people like Lorefice and Scott Mailman, etc., but I don't know whether that comp predated Jumbo's death nor do I think it's really important.

The comp predated Jumbo's death by number of years. I think Frank put it together in 1997, no later than 1998. It was one of the first things he did.

 

 

It was the memorial tapes that kickstarted the Jumbo boom and I think Dean's Jumbo vs. Harley review in the DVDVR was more influential than the Other Arena crew as DVDVR had a greater reach.

Dean's Harley review put over Harley as much if not more (and I'm pretty sure More) than Jumbo.

 

I'm pretty confident that in that 1997-2000 era before Jumbo's death, even the DVDVR folks would agree that we drove the AJPW discussion. Lord know, *I* get blamed for all that now.

 

 

If people are lifelong Beatles fans that's their business, but do people go around touting the best ever in other fields of entertainment? It seems a particular obsession of wrestling fans.

People do it in every form of entertainment, in sports, and damn near everything else. It's not even remotely close to a particular obsession of wrestling fans.

 

Look... I don't want to be an asshat about this, but you flat out know that's not true, Daniel. You were the one complaining about an obvious movie winning the Smarks Best Movie poll. The Sight & Sound poll has been around prior to all of us being just sperm & eggs. AFI does film best film lists. Rolling Stone, along with countless other music magazines, has done best lists for songs, albums, concerts, guitarists, etc. There are lists of Best Comics, Best Comic Villians, Best Comic Heros. There are lists of the Best Books of the 20th Century.

 

There are *several* books devoted to the Best Baseball Players, best Baseball Teams, best Baseball Dynasties, etc. Same goes for other sports: Bill Simmons had a national #1 bestseller that at the core was a ranking of the Best Players and the Best Teams.

 

Wait...

 

There are lists of best Presidents, Prime Minsters, Kings...

 

This is not remotely a wrestling fan thing. And you know it. :/

 

If pushed I would name what I think is the greatest of all time in any other field, but it's not some badge of honour like it is with wrestling. I wonder if it's because wrestling fans spend more time talking about wrestling than watching it. Or maybe I don't move in the right circles in regard to my other hobbies. Wrestling sure has its sacred cows, though.

Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth are sacred cows.

 

Citizen Kane and The Rules of the Game are sacred cows, and now Vertigo and Tokyo Story are. Christ.

 

Regarding Fujiwara, neither shoot style nor 80s New Japan were widely watched by the swarm of new fans who got into Japanese wrestling late. They may have been watched by hardcores previously, but those people didn't make up a vocal presence on the internet from 1999 onwards in my experience. Fujiwara was not well regarded in real time, so to speak.

Maeda won a WON Wrestler Of the Year award. Hardcores who watch AJPW and NJPW in the 80s also watched UWF. Generally speaking, they didn't think much of Fujiwara.

 

Were they wrong? These are the same folks who thought Jumbo was Lazy, Backlund was goofy, Sayama was great... Flair was the best ever, Tenryu was great, Fujinami was great...

 

Like all of us, they were right and wrong on various things in forming their opinions relative to how other people see them.

 

 

Returning to your original point, I actually think we caught up with what Japanese fans already knew in regard to Fujinami and Choshu most recently.

Which is funny since Meltzer back in 1983 was talking about how great Choshu and Fujinami were. In fact, I'm not entirely sure there's a point at which US hardcore fans didn't think that Fujinami at his peak wasn't great. Or that Riki wasn't a cool mutherfucker.

 

There is some irony in catching up with 30 year old US hardcore wrestling fandom ideas. For our next trick, we'll think Sayama was great because that what US *and* Japanese fans "knew" back in the early 80s.

 

John

[jdw]

ohtani -- you might not get anything as crude as GOAT discussions in other fields, but most fields have their canons and sacred cows. Shakespeare in literature, Bob Dylan in pop music, Hitchcock or Kurosawa or Bergman or Welles in film -- the idea that pimping of incredibly canonical figures is unique to wrestling is surely wrong.

 

What I think happens in wrestling though is that wrestling fans don't think about wrestlers like they think about writers or directors, they think about them like sportsmen. The idea of a GOAT is more of a sports thing than an entertainment thing, and this is why it takes the form it does in wrestling.

People love to talk about the greatest anything. There are tons of books, columns, discussion threads, etc. attempting to establish canon in film, pop music and any other kind of art. And yes, it's a particular obsession in sports coverage. If I wanted to inflame my newspaper's readers beyond reckoning, all I'd have to do is write a blog post saying Johnny Unitas wasn't one of the five greatest quarterbacks ever or that Cal Ripken was right when he said Adrian Beltre was a better third baseman than Brooks Robinson. People eat that shit up, so why should it be any different with wrestling?

 

Exactly. Daniel himself does it. Jawdropping stuff to pretend it doesn't happen in other fields.

[jdw]

re: Jumbo as a GOAT, I think that almost anyone who was serious about Japanese wrestling found there way into the cult of jdw and his opinion was as influential as anyone's outside of Meltzer's in that era.

Yeah... I get blamed for all that shit.

 

John

[jdw]

Would anyone object if I ran a new "best worker of the 80s" poll with around 20 different options?I am generally rather curious as to who would win.

My thought would be to wait until the 80s project is done. It's the natural point at which to run such a poll.

 

John

[FLIK]

When was the GOAT poll? Jumbo died in 2000. I suspect that the majority of the people who voted for Jumbo in the GOAT poll (regardless of whether it was #1 or lower) knew who Jumbo was before he died. It wasn't like the voters in that poll all happened to discover puroresu in 2011. Certainly not 90%.

The SC poll was early 2006 though I think the discussion for it started late 05.

[jdw]

It stands out because Ric Flair invented spot fu on one hand and sat in holds in matches with Brody and Sting on the other hand. It was unclear what his critics wanted from him, as he was a little damned if he did, damned if he didn't. That's not say some of the criticism of Flair wasn't valid. I always thought you were fair, even when critical. But did Frank ever say anything complimentary about him?

Frank thought he was a good worker, but wanted people to open their eyes to the fact that he did a lot of the same goofy shit that other people did, some times even worse. On the other hand, Frank loved Flair's bitching, stooging comedy shit. I remember getting pissed off at Flair bumping for the Ref while Frank just loved it with comments along the lines of, "Of course Flair is a bitch... that's what's fun about him".

 

Did Chris Coey? Because I sure don't remember it if they did.

I don't remember Coey talking about him much. Certainly not like he talked about Toyota. On the other hand, Chris also enjoyed getting folks riled up. So if he was going to be critical of Flair, he'd push it.

 

Back to your earlier points:

 

* Ric Flair invented spot fu on one hand

 

Ric was a spot-centric wrestler. Unless one is really adverse to all criticism of Flair, you'll see that (i) once someone points it out, and (ii) the next time you watch one of his matches with an open eye. It's a bit like saying Stan Hansen / Toshiaki Kawada is stiff: it's right out there in the open.

 

The reason I tried to get across "spot fu" is because in online hardcore circle I ran in at the time, the biggest thing folks were bitching about was Spotty Workers. Well, Flair is that, people... so ponder that a bit when determining (i) whether spots suck, or (ii) Flair is like a lot of workers they're bitching about.

 

 

* sat in holds in matches with Brody and Sting on the other hand.

 

This one was going at a few things.

 

The Brody comment was aimed at a certain guy in St Louis who just talked out of his ass about a match. So we pointed it out.

 

On a larger scale, the discussions about Flair In Holds wasn't about Ric being a lazy fuck and not doing lots of cool stuff in his matches. It was about how he worked holds. Watch his peers work holds, and watch Flair... and Ric just isn't good. It's not something he's terribly interested in. Frankly... Flair works holds for shit. He does lots of other cool stuff.

 

Here's an analogy:

 

Magic Johnson wasn't a good defensive player. Some would say he was a shit defensive player, though I might not go there because he did have defensive value as a rebounder relative to his position. But he wasn't good. He also wasn't a really good jump shooter, he wasn't strong from 20 with someone in his face.

 

On the other hand... he was a tremendous passer. He ran the break great. Over time he added various things to his offense to the point that he was a bit dangerous in a variety of places on the floor. He was an extremely smart player. He was a good FT shooter, so if you fouled him it was a problem... and he was very good at drawing fouls. He was competitive as ALL FUCK, and he's kill you and himself to try to win. He came into camp in shape every year, and over the course of his career was at the cutting edge of modern (for the 80s) basketball training: he hit the weights and worked stamina that was well ahead of 90% of the NBA (as were a lot of the Lakers). He was an INSANE leader who made everyone on the team better if they had any desire to get better. He was a winner.

 

Magic was a bad defensive player.

 

He also is one of the five best basketball players ever to live... at least until Kobe and/or Lebron bump him lower. Jordan, Russell, Jabbar... then you get into the spot where Magic competes with a very small number of people for the #4 spot.

 

He's also one of my 2-3 favorite players who ever played... maybe #1 if I thought about it some more.

 

You can point out weakness / soft spots of great performers, even ones that are way up there (i.e. Top 5 of All-Time).

 

If you're moderately objective and being honest, you can even do it of your favorites, even ones way up there (quite possibly #1).

 

Magic... Flair. Two cool motherfuckers that I loved watching on TV and in the Fabulous Forum in the 80s. And two guys that were far from perfect at what they did... just really great. Pointing out their weaknesses doesn't mean they're not great.

 

John