2026 Ideas

[KB8]

I don't really have anything to substantiate this other than having a "feel" of what Matt likes based on all the stuff I've seen him talk about before (maybe that's substantiative enough?), but I get the sense Kandori might be more up his alley exactly *because* she's pretty unique, and in that sense brings some stuff to the table that might ease him in a little better. On the other hand you're both probably right in that she's not really representative of joshi as a style (that's a pretty broad way of looking at things, I know), especially if diving into 90s boom era joshi is the starting point. 

[El-P]

35 minutes ago, KB8 said:

I don't really have anything to substantiate this other than having a "feel" of what Matt likes based on all the stuff I've seen him talk about before (maybe that's substantiative enough?), but I get the sense Kandori might be more up his alley exactly *because* she's pretty unique, and in that sense brings some stuff to the table that might ease him in a little better. 

Oh, yeah, totally agree, I thought the exact same thing, and I guess that's why he's more tempted to dig into Kandori first actually. I don't expect Matt to go crazy for Toyota or Kyoko. Although everyone should, because they are awesome, Toyota being the apex of absolute go-go-go workers, I don't think there have been anybody even close before or after. Kyoko from memory is a little bit different, although clearly also rooted in the ultimate "We can outworkrate the best men, you patriarcal society !" (and succeeding) mentality.

[ohtani's jacket]

Kandori wasn't that unique. Once UWF got big, Chigusa, Lioness and Omori started incorporating a lot of shoot style influence into their work which beget the likes of Hotta and Yamada. Kandori was different in that she came from a legitimate background, but even before the UWF got big workers like Sato and Yokota were working more serious wrestling styles. 

Watching Kandori matches would expose you to pre-split JWP, which not a lot of people have seen. Her post inter-promotional era stuff would also expose you to a lot of different workers. She had a couple of famous matches with Bull, so you could even knock Nakano off your list. 

It's a shame that All Japan didn't go through with the late 80s Kandori vs. Chigusa dream match. 

[Matt D]

Might have missed it but I actually got dragooned into watching the hour-long Toyota vs Inoue match:

https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/topic/34104-the-greatest-wrestler-ever-project-postscript/?do=findComment&comment=5939259

which I liked, but I think a good chunk of of that was because they were legitimately exhausted towards the end and had no choice but to let things sink in and resonate (the hour long joshi epic version of the "now you have to sell my shitty punches" Jake Roberts/Warrior story?) which made everything that came before matter all the more.

Anyway, while I am happy to get aboard the joshi zeitgeist express here, as I have five years, and certainly respect Elliott's opinions, I am trying to ease into this a bit, yeah. My guess is that it'll be a bit like 90s lucha, where there's there's a lot that was missed at the time due to the more narrow interests of the people watching/obsessing, that the lot of you have been recontextualizing over the last few years, and I'll catch up to that party. There are general elements (we'll say "absolute emotional commitment to the moment" for instance) that I know I like already, but I've only seen dribs and drabs over the years.

[ohtani's jacket]

I will say that I think it's important to sample all sorts of Joshi. Joshi is one of those stupid terms we use to encapsulate an entire group of sub genres, a bit like puroresu or lucha. That's why the early 90s interpromotional cards were such great gateway shows because they presented you with so many different workers/match types. 

[El-P]

16 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Kandori wasn't that unique. Once UWF got big, Chigusa, Lioness and Omori started incorporating a lot of shoot style influence into their work which beget the likes of Hotta and Yamada. Kandori was different in that she came from a legitimate background, but even before the UWF got big workers like Sato and Yokota were working more serious wrestling styles. 

That is true. But even then, Kandori's stuff didn't look like Chiggy or Lioness' UWF influenced stuff, which then stemmed the excellent Yamada and the crappy Hotta. In a way she was like post-comeback Minoru Suzuki, as he's absolutely not representative of what shootstyle used to be (of course he was when he was younger because he worked the regular style then) and really has his own thing going (which is part of why he's so fun to watch usually).

12 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Might have missed it but I actually got dragooned into watching the hour-long Toyota vs Inoue match:

https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/topic/34104-the-greatest-wrestler-ever-project-postscript/?do=findComment&comment=5939259

which I liked, but I think a good chunk of of that was because they were legitimately exhausted towards the end and had no choice but to let things sink in and resonate (the hour long joshi epic version of the "now you have to sell my shitty punches" Jake Roberts/Warrior story?) which made everything that came before matter all the more.

Haven't watched it in 20 years I guess, but from memory it was the kind of "statement" match I really enjoy, the statement here being "We're gonna go so hard and so fast for so long until the point we're gonna shoot exhaust ourselves yet still try to go as fast and hard as humanly possible". These women were something else.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Kandori worked a lot of brawls, which played off her heat with Sato and others, but she was clearly a shoot style worker doing brawls even if "shoot style" in this case amounted to judo elements. As far as I remember when she worked the Yokota types she was presented as a different kind of match-up for them. I can't remember her working too many straight shooter vs. shooter type matches, but styles make fights. That's why the Hokuto match is great and the Toyota match. The thing with Kandori is that her early work has been largely unwatched and her LLPW work has been largely unwatched, except for a few hardcores like Jetlag and earlier completists like PUNQ. Most people only know her from her interpromotional work. She's a great subject to explore for a list like this. If Matt watches the same footage that Jetlag has, I'm sure he'll pick up on all sorts of details. 

People shouldn't sleep on Ozaki or Kansai, either. 

[Matt D]

7 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

People shouldn't sleep on Ozaki or Kansai, either. 

I binged a lot of Ozaki five years ago to have something to talk to Stacey about on the podcast and liked what I saw, though the 2000s matches kind of got weird with the outside assistance.

[El-P]

Of course Ozaki. Oz was awesome. You want to watch JWP Oz, not really GAEA Oz (although in the second part of the 90's she was still excellent there playing mentor to her Oz Academy students, some terrific stuff then).

[El-P]

17 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

The thing with Kandori is that her early work has been largely unwatched and her LLPW work has been largely unwatched, except for a few hardcores like Jetlag and earlier completists like PUNQ.

I had watched the LLPW stuff from the early 90's. It's not very interesting because LLPW had not a very good roster compared to the two other promotions. I mean, there was some cool workers and veterans, but having to watch Eagle Sawaii & Rumi Kazama a lot is not something fun at all. Clearly the main events got good when the interpromotional stuff kicked in. And Kandori was so made for this. Her early work for sure I'd be interested in watching.

Megumi Kudo surely deserves a comeback too, she was a fascinating worker.

And of course, Yoshida, the marvels of all marvels.

[Loss]

9 hours ago, Grimmas said:

The point of wrestling and being an actor is the same, money. Does that mean The Rock is the best wrestler ever and the best actor ever? I would say no, and very few people looking into actors would think The Rock is even a contender for best actor, but you can't deny his boxoffice.

Although I don't follow things enough, but is there any critics for music or movies that do their reviews based on the money those things make?

No, and this wouldn't be basing it on the money either. It would be basing it on how crowds respond to it.

[Grimmas]

Just now, Loss said:

No, and this wouldn't be basing it on the money either. It would be basing it on how crowds respond to it.

How crowd responds is not a problem at all. If I said differently, I apologize.

[Loss]

My point is, promos are part of generating that live response. The role of a pro wrestler is to convince people to want to see them take on foes. You can do that by it being exciting every time you do take on your foes, you can do that by making yourself loathsome and people wanting to beat you up, you can do that by getting people to rally behind you. My issue is that not that we should factor in drawing power. It's that we should look at every aspect of performance, including promos in environments where that matters, because I think compartmentalizing everything is an overly narrow focus.

[El-P]

4 minutes ago, Loss said:

It's that we should look at every aspect of performance, including promos in environments where that matters, because I think compartmentalizing everything is an overly narrow focus.

Do you speak Japanese, Spanish, French ? Because if you don't, you just can't judge that element. You can gauge that Akira Hokuto was pretty much great at cutting promos, but you can't really judge. We can pretend that promo matter less in Japan, yet Choshu or Takada's great charisma and personality on the mic surely played a part in how they were received by audiences and why crowds reacted to them the way they did (and why they became such big draws). But as I don't speak Japanese, I can't judge their actual promo ability. 

[Grimmas]

3 minutes ago, Loss said:

My point is, promos are part of generating that live response. The role of a pro wrestler is to convince people to want to see them take on foes. You can do that by it being exciting every time you do take on your foes, you can do that by making yourself loathsome and people wanting to beat you up, you can do that by getting people to rally behind you. My issue is that not that we should factor in drawing power. It's that we should look at every aspect of performance, including promos in environments where that matters, because I think compartmentalizing everything is an overly narrow focus.

How do I evaluate a Shinobu Kandori promo?

There are a lot of things that go into being a wrestler, like how good your merch is too. I don't know how you can take those things in. With movies/music we don't, not sure why we do with wrestling?

[Loss]

Just now, El-P said:

Do you speak Japanese, Spanish, French ? Because if you don't, you just can't judge that element. You can gauge that Akira Hokuto was pretty much great at cutting promos, but you can't really judge. We can pretend that promo matter less in Japan, yet Choshu or Takada's great charisma and personality on the mic surely played a part in how they were received by audiences and why they became such big draws. But as I don't speak Japanese, I can't judge their actual promo ability. 

Wrestling is less about what you say than how you say it. I don't need to speak Japanese to know that Akira Hokuto is a great promo. 

[Matt D]

7 minutes ago, Loss said:

My point is, promos are part of generating that live response. The role of a pro wrestler is to convince people to want to see them take on foes. You can do that by it being exciting every time you do take on your foes, you can do that by making yourself loathsome and people wanting to beat you up, you can do that by getting people to rally behind you. My issue is that not that we should factor in drawing power. It's that we should look at every aspect of performance, including promos in environments where that matters, because I think compartmentalizing everything is an overly narrow focus.

I get where you're coming from, but I'll go with you only as far in examining how they utilize the capital they create with the promos with their wrestling in the ring. If someone has a lot of built up capital and then squanders it by not tapping into it well through their wrestling, that's potentially a knock against, for instance.

Otherwise, it's just not what this project is to me at least. I think you can compare ringwork across styles, regions, languages, eras. I don't think you can factor this in as well, except for as I mentioned above. You can think about how Satanico's evil skits were capitalized upon in his ringwork. You can think about how Rusher Kimura's post-match ramblings were capitalized upon in his ringwork. But I'm not going that huge, huge step more.

[Loss]

1 minute ago, Grimmas said:

How do I evaluate a Shinobu Kandori promo?

There are a lot of things that go into being a wrestler, like how good your merch is too. I don't know how you can take those things in. With movies/music we don't, not sure why we do with wrestling?

Because promos are part of the show. We don't rate action stars entirely based on fight scene quality. And people compare foreign films to American films all the time.

[El-P]

Just now, Loss said:

Wrestling is less about what you say than how you say it. I don't need to speak Japanese to know that Akira Hokuto is a great promo. 

Or maybe you say that because you already know that she was a great wrestler and you've got a confirmation bias. You can't judge the "how" if you don't understand the language, because the "how" is also part of the expression of the language. Of course you can see the intensity of things, but for instance, maybe Onita was a shit promo and his melodramatic stuff in English or French would make me laugh my ass off.

[El-P]

1 minute ago, Loss said:

And people compare foreign films to American films all the time.

Subtitles. And a movie dialogue is not a pro-wrestling promo. 

[Loss]

My point here is that I'm trying to break this notion of looking down a checklist of things and the wrestler has to tick off a series of boxes. Promos matter in some environments and don't in others. When it matters, it should count because it's part of the composite view we have of wrestlers. If you're looking for a single standard you can hold everyone to, that single standard is that they leverage everything available to them in their environment to do their job well.

[El-P]

2 minutes ago, Loss said:

We don't rate action stars entirely based on fight scene quality.

We don't ? Most of them are totally shitty actors, there's nothing else to look for. 

[El-P]

2 minutes ago, Loss said:

My point here is that I'm trying to break this notion of looking down a checklist of things and the wrestler has to tick off a series of boxes. Promos matter in some environments and don't in others. When it matters, it should count because it's part of the composite view we have of wrestlers. If you're looking for a single standard you can hold everyone to, that single standard is that they leverage everything available to them in their environment to do their job well.

Totally agree about the bolded part, like I said before. But promos to me is not part of the match itself. And to me pro-wrestling is still about having pro-wrestling matches and that's why I watch pro-wrestling and that's what it's all about in the end. 

[Loss]

2 minutes ago, El-P said:

Or maybe you say that because you already know that she was a great wrestler and you've got a confirmation bias. You can't judge the "how" if you don't understand the language, because the "how" is also part of the expression of the language. Of course you can see the intensity of things, but for instance, maybe Onita was a shit promo and his melodramatic stuff in English or French would make me laugh my ass off.

No. There are plenty of great non-English speaking wrestlers that I'd never defend as great promos. Hokuto speaks with conviction and delivers well, and she tends to get the intended reaction. That transcends language. If she was talking about making cereal and I had no idea, that would be hilarious, but I can infer that's not happening based on how audiences respond to her.

[Loss]

Just now, El-P said:

Totally agree about the bolded part, like I said before. But promos to me is not part of the match itself. And to me pro-wrestling is still about having pro-wrestling matches and that's why I watch pro-wrestling and that's what it's all about. 

Promos are not part of the match itself. Promos are part of the performing job of a professional wrestler though. And I think every aspect of how wrestlers perform in front of audiences should be fair game.