JerryvonKramer Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 Well let's see, who would definitely be above Jumbo for the 70s? Let's take the NWA champs as a given, even if each case is debatable: Dory Funk Jr Jack Brisco Terry Funk Harley Race Let's also throw in as "gimmies": Giant Baba Billy Robinson The Destroyer That's 7. From World of Sport who is definitely better? Jim Breaks for certain. Who else? Who else from elsewhere? Bockwinkel? Stevens? Carpentier? Jumbo has a lot more complete matches on tape than most of these guys which helps him. But then again, he's having great matches with a lot of these guys so you can look at it both ways. Would be unfair to hold it against him that he was young and so being carried by "seasoned pros". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 21, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 It is some way down the line, but I'd be interested if we were to do a top 70s workers "in the world" how many would be WoS, how many US and how many Japanese. Interesting talking point. Pete and I will probably do an Xtra on the US workers in the next couple of months, but once I've got a lot more WoS under my belt, I'd like to think about a world-wide one too. I believe there is very little to no 70s Lucha right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 I'm not high on the guy, but Inoki would need a look. Some other dark horses would be Buddy Rose, Bob Backlund, and Greg Valentine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 I forgot to add Verne Gagne and Jerry Lawler, maybe Bill Dundee. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 Rose has a hell of a 79 but he starts relatively late in the decade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Schneider Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 Johnny Valentine was still active in the 70s Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 How much Johnny Valentine is on tape? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 Buddy Rose is my pick and it will be hard to convince me otherwise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 Also I like 70s Fujinami better than most of the guys In Parvd first post. Also like the 70s Lawler and Dundee we have Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Childs Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 Of the great WOS guys, Clive Myers, Steve Grey and Marty Jones were all pumping out excellent matches by the middle of the decade. Alan Sarjeant and Steve Veidor maybe? Though Sarjeant didn't make tape a lot. I know OJ is a big fan of Tibor Szakacs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GSR Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 Steve Grey was the first WOS guy I thought of. I've not watched much 70's Jones yet. Jon Cortez is one half of my favourite WOS match of the decade (so far), and what about someone like McManus? Sarjeant is badly hindered by how much footage we have, and I'm really high on Clay Thomson but there is even less of him on tape than there is Sarjeant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Childs Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 I thought of Cortez but a lot of his best stuff came in the early '80s. Same for Jones, I guess, though he had the great Rocco series and the Rudge match in the '70s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 This is more me asking questions than suggesting anyone: Bobby Shane Jerry Jarrett Mr. Wrestling II Bob Armstrong Dusty and Murdoch? Watts? Blackwell was at his physical prime, no? How much did Heenan actually wrestle? How good was Eaton by the end of the decade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR Ackermann Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 You could throw Andre in there. And Terry Rudge. Fujinami & Rose are both very good by at least 78. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR Ackermann Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 I just realized it said, "who would be above Jumbo." I don't know if I would say Andre was better at that point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR Ackermann Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 This is more me asking questions than suggesting anyone: Bobby Shane Jerry Jarrett Mr. Wrestling II Bob Armstrong Dusty and Murdoch? Watts? Blackwell was at his physical prime, no? How much did Heenan actually wrestle? How good was Eaton by the end of the decade? Definitely not Jarrett. Murdoch is a very good possibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 21, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 How could I forget Pat Patterson! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted November 21, 2014 Report Share Posted November 21, 2014 Of the great WOS guys, Clive Myers, Steve Grey and Marty Jones were all pumping out excellent matches by the middle of the decade. Alan Sarjeant and Steve Veidor maybe? Though Sarjeant didn't make tape a lot. I know OJ is a big fan of Tibor Szakacs. It's a shame we don't have more footage of Albert "Rocky" Wall or Gwyn Davies, who were the two dominant heel British Heavyweight Champions of the era. We don't even have that much heel Pat Roach. I guess I would take Jumbo over the likes of Wayne Bridges and Tony St. Clair, and probably Ray Steele though it pains me to say it. Tibor and Veidor I personally like more. In the lighter weights, you'd have to consider Sid Cooper, Bobby Barnes, Steve Wright, Bert Royal, Vic Faulkner, Mike Marino, Bobby Ryan, Jeff Kaye, Pete Roberts, Brian Maxine, and guys like Peter Szacaks, Adrian Street, Abe Ginsberg and Peter Preston if we had more footage. It's crazy how many good workers there were. Add to that the huge amount of depth in Mexico and even a Joshi worker like Yumi Ikeshita and it's a lot less cut and dry that Jumbo is an automatic lock for the top 10. It's hard to imagine that El Faraon, Perro Aguayo, Fishman, Sangre Chicana, Ray Mendoza, etc. weren't great in the mid to late 70s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted November 22, 2014 Report Share Posted November 22, 2014 For the record--and I know Parv likes the Brisco match, even if it seemed like 90% due to the awesome commentary--Watts has never had a reputation for being a good worker, and he has a long-ish squash match from '60s WWWF TV that's really quite bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Garrett Posted January 18, 2015 Report Share Posted January 18, 2015 The 70's impacted me continuing to be a fan greatly. I was 11 at the beginning of the decade and finished it at 21. If it wasn't for the Super 70's I wouldn't of remained a fan more then likely because of the teen years I was approaching at the time. So I have very strong opinions on the best pro wrestlers of the 70's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollinger. Posted January 28, 2015 Report Share Posted January 28, 2015 Any chance of someone putting together DVD sets of the best stuff from the 70s that's available? It'd be nice to have everything compiled and made available, especially for a project like this. It seems like the 80s sets are losing steam, and I'd hate to see that kind of archiving project die out. The voting/ranking process has always felt far less important to me than the fact that a group of knowledgeable people were ensuring that the history of wrestling isn't forgotten, and is made relatively easy to get ahold of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexoblivion Posted April 10, 2015 Report Share Posted April 10, 2015 Some names to maybe consider when discussing top workers of the 70's; Chris Colt, Don Jardine, Wahoo, Mil Mascaras, Ron Fuller, Buddy Colt, and Karl Kox. Not trying to argue that their better than Jumbo, but perhaps a few of the top workers of the decade. Regarding Valentine and footage, I think the tag match in Japan with Krofatt may be the longest match of his that is available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted April 10, 2015 Report Share Posted April 10, 2015 I chanced upon a disc of Florida Arena Footage from the late 70s and was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by Ron Fuller's work as a babyface. Most of what I've seen from Ron has been kind of past his prime when he's wearing the Tennessee Stud mask but in the Florida footage he's a 6'9 fired up babyface throwing some big time dropkicks and looking way more quick and agile than I'd ever seen him. I wouldn't try to argue him for the list but having seen that, I would really love to see more footage of Ron Fuller from that time period. It's not every day you see a 6'9 guy moving around that way. By the 80s it seemed like he was having a lot of trouble with his knees, which isn't rare for a guy that height, especially when he played basketball through high school and college at the University of Miami. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexoblivion Posted April 15, 2015 Report Share Posted April 15, 2015 Here's a question, which Fuller is considered the better worker? Not sure if I'm remembering this correctly, but didn't Foley write that Robert was more talented than his brother, but terrible with his money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted April 15, 2015 Report Share Posted April 15, 2015 I haven't really seen enough of either in their prime to judge, but I definitely believe that Ron was better with his money than Robert was. Ron even managed to get out of losing operations like Continental & USA Championship with plenty of money in his pocket and was retired from wrestling for good by the end of 1989, outside of a few shows he promoted in the late 90s. Robert wrestled pretty much everywhere after Continental died off, working Memphis, Dallas, the George Scott NAWA/SAWA thing, SMW, probably more I'm forgetting before landing in WCW as Colonel Parker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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