Wrestling With The Past #1

[WingedEagle]

Finally had a chance to finish this yesterday and enjoyed it immensely. I really enjoyed the international parts as its what I'm least familiar with having grown up with WWF/WCW. Next time don't blow through joshi so quickly!!

[goodhelmet]

If Childs and I had any interest in joshi, we would spend more time on it. However, I have not had one person pick up a yearbook who said... Can't wait to see this years joshi selection. Loss spent some time on it and Childs was pretty considerate about it. As Toyota, Hokuo and Kong start rising up, we will talk more about them.

[WingedEagle]

Yep you guys were pretty clear it wasn't your thing this time around. I'm sure it'll pick up more as you get into '92 and beyond like you said. I'm just a sucker for hearing about things that are still foreign to me.

[soup23]

I will say that joshi is certainly not the sole reason I pick up the yearbooks i have so far, but it is the thing along with USWA/US indies and lucha as the thing I am most interested in watching because it is mostly all new to me and I especially in regards to joshi, I doubt I will ever pick up whole shows of it.

[Zenjo]

I'm fairly sure that MAD USA was the original idea behind the Madusa name.

[ohtani's jacket]

Loss' take on Joshi is interesting since not many people watch it these days outside of a pretty closed group of fans and youtube users. The "name" Joshi fans, so to speak, have all drifted away so it's been rewarding to see Loss discover and re-evaluate stuff. I would be interesting for you guys to discuss your issues with Joshi with Loss and perhaps Loss can explain what does and doesn't bother him about the style. Not an entire show perhaps but once Joshi becomes a bit more prominent say around '93.

[goodhelmet]

We'll get to it. OJ, you are exactly right... joshi doesn't get talked about except for a small circle... and I think that small circle already has all the joshi they could want and the joshi on the yearbook is not going to compel them to pick up the yearbook. The podcasts are part infomercial and part funcast. I could drop 30 more minutes on Jerry Lawler and have guys excited about all the Memphis on the set. Those guys are going to pick up the set sometimes just for the Memphis. If I add an hour or two more of joshi to a set, it will not affect the bottom line one bit so I admittedly cater to my base. With that said, since Loss and I do try to stick to the spirit of the yearbooks in giving a nice landscape of wrestling in the year, we may chop a bunch of joshi out, we still have a pretty big clump of matches on every set. I don't know how much more we will discuss joshi on the podcasts unless Childs feels interested in engaging Loss on the subject.

[Childs]

I think it'll be worth having more Joshi discussion come the '93 and '94 podcasts. Hard to avoid talking about some of the most acclaimed matches in the world, especially given how highly Loss rated them.

[goodhelmet]

Brother, I am just hosting. We gave Loss a forum to discuss it. If you engage him, the joshi conversation will be longer.

[Loss]

In general, I'm not a fan of thinking too much about "lucha libre" or "Joshi" or "puroresu" or other wrestling styles too much. It's all just wrestling. Yes, there are often differences, but there are more often similarities. There are different ways to skin a cat, even within lucha libre, or within Joshi. I personally don't get not liking an entire style. Every style has bad matches, and hopefully they all have good ones too. Ultimately, there are only two types of wrestling -- good and bad. I prefer the good stuff.

[goodhelmet]

We should do a podcast on that very topic because I strongly disagree with that statement. There are styles of wrestling that people do not enjoy for whatever reason. We can get into this more on the air. Coming soon... Styles (of wrestling) Clash 2013!!!!

[Loss]

I had a response here before that I felt it was best to delete.

[goodhelmet]

Don't mince words. You could have just deleted the post and nobody would know any better.

[Loss]

I put that here in case anyone saw it before I deleted it, but fine. Here's what I wrote if you're going to call me out on it instead of just letting it be.

 

Not liking an entire style because of a few matches you have seen and haven't liked is similar to not liking a race or nationality of people because you've met a few that are jerks. I'm not saying that to call people who don't like all styles of wrestling racist, but more to make a strong statement about the danger of sweeping generalizations in anything.

[goodhelmet]

The misogyny argument works better than the racist argument. Having said that, we can discuss it on the next yearbook podcast.

[cheapshot]

Listened to the first hour or so of this EXCELLENT podcast. Well done to all those involved. I just now need to track down these USWA angles with Tatum and Lawler/Snowman as well as El Dandy vs. El Satanico.

[WingedEagle]

We should do a podcast on that very topic because I strongly disagree with that statement. There are styles of wrestling that people do not enjoy for whatever reason. We can get into this more on the air. Coming soon... Styles (of wrestling) Clash 2013!!!!

Giddyup. I think there's a very strong argument on both sides of this coin. The language differences can certainly set a high barrier that takes some time to cross. Announcers, promos and crowd reactions help us understand what and why we should care about things in domestic wrestling, particularly early when you're discovering and being introduced to something. I've never tried it, but wonder how a fan would approach let's say WWE today watching entirely on mute. I've got a deaf cousin who unfortunately isn't a wrestling fan but can only wonder how our views might differ on the same product, with or without closed captioning.

 

Similarly, I'm just not into foreign films. I love reading and I love watching movies, but if I'm going to the movies I just don't want to read a book there, so I basically close myself off to that space. Its not necessarily reasonable but it works for me. Wrestling is different because as much as the audio makes a difference (and even if you don't speak the language you can certainly pick up on a ton of emotional cues from the announcers), its a primarily visual form.

 

There's also something to Loss's point as well about people turning off a given style perhaps solely because of who's doing it or what's presented. I can't defend it as well thought out, but if someone for whatever reason can't get into two women doing their thing in Japan, they're obviously entitled. Perhaps its superficial, but you can't force yourself to dig something that just doesn't connect at all.

 

Either way, let's make that pod a go and show AJ how to properly execute a Styles Clash!

[Matt D]

When I hit a huge gap of opinion with anyone about anything, the first, most important thing for me to do is to figure out why I feel how I do. The NEXT most important thing is to try to figure out why they feel like they do. Then it's a matter of understanding the differences.

[rainmakerrtv]

Listening to the podcast, I was thinking that the first half of 1990 with the Luger series was the last run of Flair as the fountain of great matches. After losing the belt to Sting, there were still some great matches but they were more scattered. His last world title run before the jump didn't have a whole lot to it, the WWF run had a few great matches, after he jumped back I don't think he had those periods of lots of great matches like he did in the 80s.

[cheapshot]

Listening to the podcast, I was thinking that the first half of 1990 with the Luger series was the last run of Flair as the fountain of great matches. After losing the belt to Sting, there were still some great matches but they were more scattered. His last world title run before the jump didn't have a whole lot to it, the WWF run had a few great matches, after he jumped back I don't think he had those periods of lots of great matches like he did in the 80s.

I think Luger peaked from a working perspective in 1989-1990 but I think he was at his hottest in 1997.

[rainmakerrtv]

Listening to the podcast, I was thinking that the first half of 1990 with the Luger series was the last run of Flair as the fountain of great matches. After losing the belt to Sting, there were still some great matches but they were more scattered. His last world title run before the jump didn't have a whole lot to it, the WWF run had a few great matches, after he jumped back I don't think he had those periods of lots of great matches like he did in the 80s.

I think Luger peaked from a working perspective in 1989-1990 but I think he was at his hottest in 1997.

 

I was actually talking about Flair's last great solid run, not Luger's.