Matches From 1957

[Loss]

Lou Thesz v Rikidozan - JWA 10/07/57

What an awesome match! So much snap to every movement and so much great, inspired matwork. I have very little doubt that more footage availability would pretty clearly make the case for Lou Thesz as the greatest wrestler ever. One thing that I said bugged me about Baba/Destroyer when re-watching it was that they did so many standoffs after they teased going in a direction that was working, but this match is completely built around restarts and standoffs, and it works brilliantly, because Thesz tries a brand new strategy every time. He would start by going for a hammerlock, Rikidozan would counter it, so he'd force the ropes so they could start over again so he could try a single leg, and the match continues from there and maintains that same mindset the whole time. There are times when you're watching Thesz bounce off the ropes or bump that you swear you're watching in fast forward, as he gets some amazing height and snap behind all of his bumping. Still going through everything and things can change, but this is the best pre-1970 match I've seen up until this point.

[JHawk]

There were clips of a Rikidozan-Thesz match on YouTube at one point (might still be there for all I know). Same match or a different one?

[Loss]

This was about an hour and was only very slightly clipped. They have another match, on 10/13 I think, that runs shorter that I'm going to watch tonight. Unless the one on YouTube is an hour, I think it's the 10/13 one that's posted.

[Loss]

Lou Thesz v Rikidozan - JWA 10/13/57

Another great match! More of a fired up battle of wills than a wrestling clinic in this case, although there's plenty of wrestling to be had as well. Thesz was all about establishing Rikidozan as his evil in the previous match, while this match was more about Thesz showing his aggression. That's not to say he dominates, as Rikidozan gets in his fair share of offense too, but this is a more dynamite example of Thesz working as a threat while the idea behind the other match was one where the champ is pushed to the limit. Shorter, with quicker falls and more urgency, but only slightly below the longer match overall.

[jdw]

There is a good deal more of Lou available, and when you watch it, you'll get a feel that he's *not* the greatest worker of all time:

 

3/31/50 Chicago International Amphitheater

Lou Thesz (NWA) { 19'40" (2-1 Falls) } Cyclone Anaya

Fall #1 Thesz ( 8'55" Thesz Press Pinfall ) Anaya

Fall #2 Anaya ( 5'19" Cobra Twist Submission ) Thesz

Fall #3 Thesz ( 5'26" Half Boston Crab Submission ) Anaya

 

01/26/51 Lou Thesz vs. Buddy Rogers (60:00)

 

04/51 Chicago

Lou Thesz (NWA) vs. Ruffy Silverstein

Fall #1: Thesz ( 10'02" Dropkick Pinfall ) Ruffy

Only 1st fall shown

 

10/5/51 Chicago International Amphitheater

Lou Thesz (NWA) { 20'45" (2-1 Falls) } Bronko Nagurski

Fall #1 Thesz ( 10'44" Thesz Press Pinfall ) Bronko

Fall #2 Bronko ( 3'46" Shoulder Block Pinfall ) Thesz

Fall #3 Thesz ( 6'15" Dropkick Pinfall ) Bronko

 

10/51 Chicago

Lou Thesz (NWA) ( 13'44" (2-1 Falls) ) Walter Palmer

Fall #1: Thesz ( 4'08" Thesz Press Pinfall ) Palmer

Fall #2: Palmer ( 3'56" Bodyslam Pinfall ) Thesz

Fall #3: Thesz ( 5'40" C.O.R. ) Palmer

 

02/53 Chicago

Lou Thesz (NWA) ( 8'48" (2-1 Falls) ) Mighty Atlas

Fall #1: Thesz ( 4'54" Dropkick/Bodypress Pinfall ) Atlas

Fall #2: Atlas ( 2'47" Full Nelson Submission ) Thesz

Fall #3: Thesz ( 1'07" Pinfall ) Atlas

 

08/14/54 Hollywood Legion Stadium

Lou Thesz (NWA) ( 16'26" (2-0 Falls) ) Tom Rice

Fall #1: Thesz ( 11'44" Dropkick Pinfall ) Rice

Fall #2: Thesz ( 4'42" Airplane Spin Pinfall ) Rice

 

02/26/55 Chicago International Amphitheater

Lou Thesz (NWA) ( 19'36" (2-0 Falls) ) Don Leo Jonathan

Fall #1: Thesz ( 15'58" Dropkick Pinfall ) Jonathan

Fall #2: Thesz ( 3'38" Backdrop Pinfall ) Jonathan

 

07/55 Chicago International Amphitheater

Lou Thesz (NWA) ( 14'57" (2-1 Falls) ) Hans Schmidt

Fall #1: Thesz ( 9'27" Thesz Press Pinfall ) Hans

Fall #2: Hans ( 5'29" Backdrop Pinfall ) Thesz

Fall #3: Thesz ( 1'01" Pinfall ) Hans

 

08/16/57 Chicago International Amphitheater

Edouard Carpentier (NWA) { 21'32" of a time limit draw shown } Lou Thesz

Fall #1 Not Shown

Fall #2 Thesz ( 11'59" Backdrop Pinfall ) Carpentier - They show the finish a second time in slow-MO on this DVD.

Fall #3 ( 9'33" Time Limit Expired )

 

 

Not officially available:

 

01/25/52 Lou Thesz vs. Verne Gagne

 

While Lou comes across "okay" in them, what he's strong at is NWA World Champion Style Work - i.e. bumping, stooging, rough housing, stalling, shortcutting, etc. His matwork is pedestrian at best, especially when you see others in the 50s working really great matwork stuff (I've cited a few in the last two King of Chicken threads on tOA).

 

Lou is a good worker, and it's a revelation to find him closer to working Flair-Race style than Lou himself would claim. But the work itself rarely is mind numbing. It's rare that Lou pulls anything out that's as much of a revelation as say the Bronko vs. Londos clips, or the 08/23/53 Hans Schmidt vs. Bob Orton Sr. and 05/11/51 Verne Gagne vs. Billy Goelz matches form the last KOC, or even the Destroyer-Baba match from the other thread. The revelations with Lou are (a) the lack of and disinterest in good matwork and ( his NWA Champ style.

 

 

John

[JHawk]

In fairness to the Thesz matches listed there, most of us have only seen a handful of those workers, and I can't imagine any of the matches outside of possibly Carpentier being any good with Thesz carrying 100% of them. Mighty Atlas and Hans Schmidt were good at drawing heat but weren't great workers by any stretch; Bronko would have been nearing the end of his career, and Thesz hated Rogers so he likely wouldn't have done much to make him look good.

 

Not saying I even liked Carpentier as a worker (only seen two or three matches with him), but that doesn't look like a great collection of workers.

 

Of course, if Thesz is truly the best ever there shouldn't be a bad match among them.

[jdw]

In fairness to the Thesz matches listed there, most of us have only seen a handful of those workers, and I can't imagine any of the matches outside of possibly Carpentier being any good with Thesz carrying 100% of them.

The problem in them isn't that Lou is "carrying 100% of them". He ain't.

 

 

Mighty Atlas and Hans Schmidt were good at drawing heat but weren't great workers by any stretch;

Actually, Schmidt was an excellent worker. Yohe has called him the Stan Hansen of the era, and that it pretty damn accurate. The Schmidt match is one of Lou's better matches from the era that's on tape, and it's largely due to Schmidt.

 

 

Bronko would have been nearing the end of his career,

Bronko was nearing the end, but he could still work the mat if Lou was any kind of a matworker. Lou really wasn't.

 

and Thesz hated Rogers so he likely wouldn't have done much to make him look good.

Lou was working with Buddy all the time when the match took place. There really wasn't anything in the match done to make Buddy look bad. Instead the obvious stood out - Lou didn't work babyface champion very well, so his end of the match was flat. If one took Verne Gagne from his performance again Lou and slapped it with Buddy from his performance against Lou, you'd have a better match than either of the two again Lou.

 

Lou's performance against Gagne was fine, if narrow. He was in his comfort zone of being a rough housing heel champ. His performance against Buddy was more akward.

 

 

Not saying I even liked Carpentier as a worker (only seen two or three matches with him), but that doesn't look like a great collection of workers.

Buddy, Gagne, Schmidt and Palmer could go. If you've seen Gagne vs. Billy Goelz, Gange could *really* fucking go in the ring, while the Schmidt vs. Bob Orton showed the same thing out of Hans.

 

My recollection is that Silverstein had a rep of being able to work as well. I don't recall on Rice. Bronko was aging, but he knew what to do in the ring on the mat, as can be seen in the clips against Londos. Lou didn't seem very interested in working a match.

 

 

Of course, if Thesz is truly the best ever there shouldn't be a bad match among them.

If Lou was the best ever, he'd bring a variety of decent holds to the table against Verne and Buddy to fill 60 minutes of time, and work those holds in an interesting manner.

 

He doesn't.

 

It's not like basic holds didn't exist then, nor the basics in working them didn't exist. They did. It's not just that we can take a look over at Gagne vs. Billy Goelz or Orton vs. Hans to see them being worked. He can look at clips back in the 30s and see Londos and Bronko working holds in a more advanced fashion than Lou.

 

In all honesty from one who's seen the matches - Londos and Bronko show more advanced work in the 8-10 minutes of clips that exist from their match than Lou showed in the entire 60 minutes against Buddy and Verne.

 

Not to be misunderstood - I think Lou was a good worker. I just think history is pretty misinformed about how he worked as Champion. He wasn't a master on the mat, even when in there with guys who could go on the mat. He was a pretty standard NWA Heel Champion. Take a little Flair, take a little Harley and there you go. I'm not entirely sold that he was any better in the role than Flair or Harley. And while being mentioned in the company of those two seems like high praise, Lou would have a fit over it. That's not how he saw himself. And I also think that in the context of their times, Harley and Flair probably were better.

 

 

John

[Loss]

I totally agree that Thesz is more of the Flair/Race style champ, but I really like that style of worker myself. I know jdw is not saying he doesn't, he's just pointing out that the perception of what Thesz was and the reality of what he was aren't necessarily the same. I actually took that as a pleasant surprise, as I was sort of expecting a super-dominant mat wrestler that didn't know how to work with an opponent, and the Rikidozan matches were much better than I expected. As far as Thesz being the best ever, I want to reiterate what I said. It wouldn't surprise me, based on a small sampling. I don't consider him so at this time. I need to pick up more footage of him.

[pantherwagner]

You need to pick up the Thesz vs. Rogers broadway from me. I'm interested in knowing what do you think about the match.

 

I believe I have already said this somewhere, but Thesz isn't what you expect. I have seen him losing to a foreign object shot by a manager, chasing somebody with a bone in a trios match in the IWA, and selling the Deadly Japanese Chops of Mr. Moto. Still, he was a great worker. Actually, you should watch some Pat O'Connor footage because for what I have seen, he was what you expect Thesz to be.

[Al]

So Thesz wrestled mainly as a heel?

[jdw]

As NWA Champ, he appeared to wrestle mainly as a heel. Depends on the opponent. Against Buddy, he's a pretty mediocre babyface. Against Gagne, he's a rough house, bumping, stooging heel. Against Schmidt, it's a bit like two rough house guys in there, though Schmidt is the rougher.

 

Depends on the opponent.

 

In one of the matches of Lou that I've seen, play-by-play man Russ Davis called Lou the mosted hated man in wrestling. Now Russ is a really shitty announcer, but he's not likely to say that about someone who is consistently a babyface.

 

The other thing that comes out - Lou works better as a heel than as a face. Lou isn't a very good babyface against Buddy.

 

 

John

[JHawk]

I would like to see that Thesz-Rogers broadway for the sheer nostalgia of it.

 

I also happen to like workers in the mold of Race and Flair, and I've liked what I've seen of Thesz (which is admittedly only three or four matches). I've never seen a Schmidt match I liked aside of one with Verne Gagne in Buffalo, never saw Palmer or Silverstein, etc. etc.

 

Thesz had to be doing something right to be on top of the NWA for such a long period of time, but even I'll admit that more footage of him is needed before we can include Thesz on a list of greatest workers of all-time. I know I never saw Thesz in person, and without that, it's hard to include him for a fact on such a list.

[jdw]

Thesz had to be doing something right to be on top of the NWA for such a long period of time, but even I'll admit that more footage of him is needed before we can include Thesz on a list of greatest workers of all-time. I know I never saw Thesz in person, and without that, it's hard to include him for a fact on such a list.

 

I don't know what to make of his longevity. I think in wrestling we've seen plenty of wrestlers who were on top for a long time and *weren't* great workers. Hogan is an example. Undertaker another. I'm not saying those two were/are horrid workers. Just that I don't think anyone is going to confuse them with the level worker that Jumbo Tsuruta is.

 

 

John