The Microscope

Gorgeous George is known mainly for his pioneering gimmick, but he really was a hell of a worker in the truest sense of the word. He could show up in WWE tomorrow and get over huge. Seriously, everybody drop what you're doing and check out these matches. vs. Larry Moquin: vs. Jesse James: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK8mU6FUmnk My favorite moment is probably the imported Florida air he brought to partake of between falls. That's something Damien Sandow should do, except maybe with air imported from Cambridge or something. With apologies to Lex Luger, George really was the total package.

....if we had the footage to prove it. I know KrisZ was talking about working up a results package on Tommy to try and get him on the HoF ballot around this time last year. I'm not even going to attempt that. Instead I'll review some of the matches of on my all time favorites as both a wrestler and a manager. Tommy Rich v. Steve Lawler This project was really brought about because of a conversation with Bix where he was telling me about these Tommy Rich matches I have somehow never seen, despite the fact that they have been floating around for a while and I am a pretty big Tommy Rich mark. The name of the tape these are off of is "Bloody Battles of The …

He's a blast ain't he? 'Col Mustafa's spiky boots used to scare the shit out of me as a WWF kid. I can only imagine the terror that The Butcher would have struck in me if I'd have seen him back then. You only have to look at him; the boots, the wacky trousers, the scars, that cartoonish egg body, those eerily pretty eyes, . . . he's a freak and a monster and a nightmare. He's twelve times larger than life. And that's all before the bell rings and he unleashes the blood, the nutshots, the demonic 'howl' and The Fork. I could watch him all day. He bumps and sells like a pro as well, and his 'karate' thrust cut-off's are timed beautifully. You can't really go wrong wi…

Not many people mentioned him in the top US workers thread and I'm not sure what his own rep is with me, so here we go, as much as the internet allows: Harley Race vs. Giant Baba, AJPW 12/9/75 I liked the way Harley and Baba communicated the size difference here. Harley's early ducking and weaving was cool and I thought his wrestling stance was rad, but for a former NWA heavyweight champion he sure went into the opening exchanges half-cocked. Why he tried attacking Baba off the ropes is something only Race would've been able to explain after the match. Baba controls the early portion of the match on the mat and it's not very interesting. I liked all the stuff i…

Another foxhole: Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Jack Brisco (4/27/79) This was billed as a dream match but there was no way you get getting an all-time classic. Not in a catchweight contest like this. It went less than 15 minutes but they made the most with the time they had. The finish was abrupt but I've seen bigger letdowns in dream matches. Not a bad exhibition match. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Masa Saito (5/25/79) Holy crap was this awesome. We all know Masa Saito was a great worker but he could really go in his younger days. He was amazingly quick in this. Fujinami was such a beautiful worker. This period of his career was so graceful to watch. There were a few …

NON-WRESTLERS Lord James Blears Dave Brown Bobby Bruns Bob Caudle Jim Crockett Jr. Bobby Davis Joe Higuchi Jim Johnston Takaaki Kidani Larry Matysik Stephanie McMahon James Melby Don Owen Reggie Parks Morris Sigel Tony Schiavone George Scott Mike Tenay Ted Turner Stanley Weston Grand Wizard Twenty one candidates in total and at most you get to pick five. Let's start with the promoters because there are quite a few of them in the Hall so there is an established standard. I rank them as Crockett, Sigel, Turner, Owen, McMahon, Kidani. I hold Crockett in high esteem. Most people remember Crockett losing the 80s wrestling war and…

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE/AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND/PACIFIC ISLANDS/AFRICA Sypros Arion L'Ange Blanc (Francisco Pino) Big Daddy John Da Silva Roger Delaporte & Andre Bollet Dominic DeNucci Billy Joyce George Kidd Killer Karl Kox Kendo Nagasaki Jackie Pallo Rollerball Mark Rocco Johnny Saint Ricki Starr Adrian Street Jose Tarres Otto Wanz Where to begin on this? It's awkward that the voters doing research on the French Catch footage also need to pass fair judgment on the British and Australian workers. I divided the group into three and I'll try and put it all together at the end. FR…

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES Cima Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan Yoshiaki Fujiwara Hayabusa Kota Ibushi Kyoko Inoue Tomohiro Ishii Naomichi Marufuji Tetsuya Naito Kazuchika Okada Meiko Satomura Katsuyori Shibata Takashi Sugiura Akira Taue So...I can't say that I really did follow wrestling in Japan. I'm aware of things, I'll check out big matches, but I can count the number of Fujiwara matches I've seen on one hand and some of these workers I've never seen. The biggest issue for me is that I would tend to judge drawing power over work. It's not so much anti-work as a philosophy that truly…

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES Los Brazos (Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata & El Brazo) Sangre Chicana Psycho Clown Los Hermanos Dinamita (Cien Caras & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000) Dorrell Dixon Pirata Morgan Mistico/Caristico Octagon La Parka AAA Huracan Ramirez Rito Romero I'll start with a list and add comments. 1. Huracan Ramirez. Contemporaries in the Hall (born in the same decade): Blue Demon, Black Shadow, Cavernario Galindo, Ray Mendoza, Gory Guerrero, Karloff Lagarde, Medico Asesino. Last year Dave said he felt the backlog of Lucha candidates was empty. I think that may h…

For reference: I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson w/J.J. Dillon Nikki Bella Junkyard Dog Bill Dundee Edge Charlotte Flair Bill Goldberg Matt & Jeff Hardy Kamala Rick Martel Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose Paul Orndorff Randy Orton C.M. Punk Seth Rollins Sgt. Slaughter Trish Stratus Rick & Scott Steiner Ultimate Warrior My top ten 1. CM Punk 2. Sgt. Slaughter 3. Junkyard Dog 4. Edge 5. Randy Orton 6. Bill Goldberg 7. Matt & Jeff Hardy 8. Rick & Scott Steiner 9. Paul Orndorff …

Something I've wanted to try, don't know if it would get any traction but it's worth a shot. One of the issues I have with the Observer Hall ballot is that it is extremely cumbersome. There are about 100 candidates this year. Rather than going up/down on each as an individual/team, I want to try and sort them out to see which are the best candidates to advance their cases. If you're inclined, rank the candidates from 1-10, regardless of whether you think they actually deserve induction. I'll include my own list on a post after this one. For reference, the candidates: Ole Anderson Bob Armstrong Hollywood Blonds (Buddy Roberts & Jerry Brown w/Sir Oli…

I'm going to take a closer look at Fuerza Guerrera for the purposes of GWE. I've always gotten into trouble trying to do lucha reviews because I'll try and list out spots or moves or sequences or specific matchups and they just end up being impossible because so much is happening with so many people and often times the best parts of lucha matches are these beautiful intricate sequences and I dunno how you review that sort of thing. In order to keep myself out of the weeds my interest here is Fuerza and Fuerza's performances specifically. What's he doing and how does it affect the matches positively or negatively. Obviously I'll be watching what the other people are doing …

I'm in need of a break from the GME project, so I'm going to try and watch every Starrcade and maybe some of the other WCW PPVs when I get to them. I've seen most of the high-end JCP/WCW matches and a few full shows here and there, but a lot of this stuff is a blind spot for me. I'll cover the shows in the same way that I did in the Cactus Watches Every Wrestlemania thread (which is currently on hiatus as the more modern Wrestlemanias are a massive chore to sit through). Seeing as there were only 18 Starrcade events and all bar one of them run under 3 hours, I imagine this will be a much easier watch than having to sit through all of the Wrestlemanias. NWA Starrcade…

I keep thinking about Sgt. Slaughter and GWE so fuck it, I'm gonna watch every Sarge match I can find. Bob Slaughter vs Higo Hamaguchi (IWE - 1/6/75) I had no idea Slaughter's hair game was so good. Holy shit. Clipped match but you can tell its nothing special. SargeBob looks like a pretty basic young worker. Bob Slaughter vs Mighty Inoue (IWE - 1/7/75) Shorter clips than the Higo match, but it looks a lot better. Sarge takes some really nice bumps that were missing from the previous match and he hits a killer backbreaker. Would've liked a complete version of this at some point. BOb Remus & BObby Duncam vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Anton Geesik (AJPW - 7…

The title is probably a little hyperbolic but "Digging Through The Crates" is already a Segunda Caida staple. In this thread I'm going to go through (mostly) lucha that has either (1) not been online before as its stuff I've bought from guys in Mexico or (2) has been online before but hasn't received any traction in our circles. I won't claim to have found any hidden gems or holy grails (we'll see!) but there is a bucket-load of stuff out there that we haven't got our hands on yet. For instance, I tracked down two guys who have that Shu/Robin Hood match Cubsfan wrote about (one is a luchadore in CMLL and the other is Shu himself). Shu won't sell it. I made progress w…

Over the last year, I've gone through the main stuff of the 1980s and started the 1990s pretty thoroughly (I'm up to the fall of 1992). I'm sharing my thoughts on chats and such, but never really here. I have three areas I'm covering now (and leading till 2026). The 90s, as stated above, going through really thoroughly. I'm also filling in the 1980s gaps. Finally, I'm going to watch a HUGE amount of the 2000s, because that is by far my weakest spot. I'm not going to give massive reviews, but I will give my thoughts. Starting off: Jd' Star Maxium Risk (2000-03-07) I have never seen Jaguar's promotion before, so I am excited for this! 1) Obat…

After watching the 1994 PPVs for the P2B podcast, we came out of the shows thinking Johnny B Badd was pretty freaking great. I'll make comments on all of the matches we watched for the project but I am going to jump into his 1995 content next starting with Fall Brawl 1995. I am really curious if he is a guy who was hitting his peak who couldn't live up to his former glory or if we just all overlooked the Badd Man!

Seen a handful of her matches and enjoyed what I've seen. I've got a bunch of early AJW, so let's assess her properly. Victoria Fujimi/Nancy Kumi v. Seiko Hanawa/Rimi Yokota - AJW TV 1978 I don't think Jaguar had been wrestling for a very long time at this point, hence her and Hanawa are called Young Pair. This is distinctly joshi from the get-go, which is kind of cool to see that the style was firmly in place as early as 1978. Fast paced, quick in and out tags, momentum changes, hard to tell who's in etc. I enjoyed this more than some of the 90s sprints because the takedowns and throws in this all ruled, the match was fairly scrappy and hate filled and laid out i…

Whilst I'm not Mr Cena's biggest fan, I do appreciate his presence in WWE. This is a guy who has been a lifelong fan, has dedicated all aspects of his life to the business (presumably his marriage broke down in part to his schedule), and has quite possibly become the biggest ambassador for WWE in the history of the company. Furthermore, although I'm going to heavily criticise Cena's wrestling ability, I will say that given the right opponent (CM Punk and Shawn Michaels both spring to mind as opponents that Cena has never had anything less than a very good match with), he can perform stellar contests. So where does the problem lie? Well I feel the need to break this do…

After just one episode of Mid-South TV, I am switching gears to Mid-Atlantic. I am bit of overwhelmed trying to squeeze years of watching the Network into a couple weeks. I was such a fool! I cant believe I took this treasure trove for granted. Instead of watching all these squash/competitive squashes, I am just going to watch the promos so I can get a feel for the characters & the angles of the timeframe. By understanding the roster, I can understand the possible permutations of the wrestlers in matches and then use different search tools to see what I can find. Starting randomly in December 1982: Depth Chart December 1982 Baby…

I was thinking what would be the best use of my limited time with the Network I think it to binge as much 1985 Mid-South as possible. I feel like such a fool for taking the Network for granted for so long. 6-Jan-1985 One thing I didnt notice (surprisingly mind you) until I watched some random Mid-Atlantic episodes was that there were NO promos at all on this show. It was all matches and Watts was narrating the stories for the viewers. It was an interesting style. Was Mid-South always like this? Was it typical? Or was this an atypical show? R'n'R Express regain the tag belts from DiBiase & Dr. Death a the end of 1984. Skandor Abar basically manages all …

This is something I've always wanted to have done but never wanted to actually do. I generally assumed that Michaels was decent in this run, neither one of the worst wrestlers in the company nor one of the best in the world, but haven't really done a whole lot of exploring how true any of that is. Most of the stuff I've seen was from right after it happened, and I never watched it again after that one time. I don't really have any opinion or memory of the Angle matches or the Undertaker matches, for instance. This site seems to have moved on a bit from posts like this, but it's also the only place I know of to talk wrestling. Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H Summerslam,…

So this is my first self-assignment for the GWE project. I'll post my reviews here. Kenta Kobashi vs. Tiger Mask II (AJPW 3/6/90) This match certainly has its flaws. It’s obvious from the start that both guys are green, especially Kobashi. He botches a neck breaker early on then later messes up the follow up pin attempt to a counter to the Tiger Driver. He also doesn’t show the confidence on offense or selling that he would later have in the decade. There’s still some good in this though. The big splash to the floor is great and I appreciated Kobashi’s efforts to work the leg. None of the work is great, but the effort is there. The finishing run was lots of fun, and …

I've been thinking about these two recently. Both are very high level for me, top-10/top-5 types (had Bret at #3 and Fujinami #5 in the GWE poll). I could go either way depending on the day. Very similar in terms of career paths by age, position on card, their versatility, and style within their respective promotions. Both were also basically ranked right next to each other during the GWE with almost identical voting statistics. Although somehow I suspect on average the people who were high on Bret weren't as high on Fujinami, and vice-versa. Curious where the board stands 5 years later.

So I'm still in lockdown here in the UK and I've been converting lots of joshi (and every once in a while, lucha and AJPW). I figured I should start journaling my thoughts on AJW. I think I have everything from El Jefe, Miguel Liger, and from Los Clasicos and La Hora Retro, plus some handhelds from 1990 and 1991. Youtube playlist for 1990 Yearbook is below and in progress. I know that AJW is definitely in a transition period with it being post-Crush Gals and not yet reaching the GOGOGO era. The red belt has been vacant for over three months (holy crap) since Lioness Asuka retired. Time to crown a new champion! First show - Tokyo Korauken Ha…