The Microscope

Now that GWE is over and I don't feel as rushed to cram footage in of people/promotions I've never seen, Buddy Rose's Portland run is high on my priority list. Up to until a few hours ago, the only Rose stuff I had ever seen was the much acclaimed AWA feud with the Midnight Rockers. What Rose feuds/matches in Portland are essential viewing or key to seeing what makes him great? I've seen the stuff with Piper get a good deal of praise. Would any of his tag matches with Ed Wiskowski be viewed as "essential"?

Kawada was Tenryu's stablemate and heir and inherited his finisher and attitude amongst other things.....but did he surpass him?

What are they? Dates or they never happened.

Watching Hase in that match against Muta and he knocked me out and made me think "there's no way this guy isn't one of the best of all time". Let's call it "the Jim Breaks effect". It is rare, but it's enough to make me explore. Hiroshi Hase vs. Shinya Hashimoto (8/3/93) Opening matwork seems pretty ho-hum to me, with Hash controlling. Match really picks up when Hase gets in an awesome chop block on Hash's shin. Love the way he just lies on the mat looking up as Hash falls down like a tree. Cool moment. Hase then goes to work laser-like on the leg. He seems to have proper Arn Anderson psychology and applies it consistently. Wears Hash down with a series of leglocks and …

remember that unscripted promo he cut on Flair? about the loose skin and yellow teeth and being in his 50s wrestling how does the man feel now wrestling in high school gyms in front of 30-40 people, his once roided up herculean body now deflated and flabby with zero definition and huge grotesque tattoos covering multiple surgeries karma is a cunt just like scott WOOO!

was there any chance of him getting a run as a top guy in WCW or WWE? I know they booked him horribly but did he have enough to get a big push?

Since when ? The day I stumbled onto puroresu I heard about Hash as being a great fucking wrestler. Even when the New Japan heavies weren't pimped at all, Hash was the exception to the rule because he was working a stiffer, harder style akin to the AJ guys which were the references back then. I love Hash, he's been a favourite of mine for ever, but it's the first time I've heard of him being "underrated". But hey, if people have forgotten how great he was these days, he should be put back into the mix yesterday indeed.

These comments make me sad. They seriously have no idea. Good to see Pete in the comments fighting the good fight.

There is an existing Regal thread here. However, I don't want to confuse the general discussion with these ongoing reviews. The Masked Destroyer, Blackpool Carnival (1986) This is true old-school as in 19th century style carny stuff. As a dude on the mic in Blackpool Pleasure Beach -- a traditional working class holiday destination -- issues a member of the public vs. wrestler challenge. £100 to last three rounds. Is it a shoot or a worked shoot? The punters seem like true marks to me. Either way, this goes to the very roots of pro wrestling. Amazing they were still doing it in 1986. They are billing it as "American Style wrestling" ha ha. True carny stuff. Amazin…

Im trying to put together a compilation of his greatest work, can anyone suggest a match?

Continuing my Haku footage from 1986 after my brief look at the 1996 run. Islanders vs. Moondogs 9/22/86 Fun brawl with the 'dogs, but I don't like Rex much. Anything involving Spot in this match is great. Tama brings such great energy to the ring as a babyface. It's hard to not like watching him work. Haku dancing like he's Iceman King Parsons is such an odd comparison to him working scary heel. This is a very fun match. Islanders vs. Jimmy Jack Funk/Mr. X 10/4/86 Ugh, do both Mr. X and J.J. have to stink the place up? Mr. X tries to work with Tama on early exchanges but is too slow and just doesn't seem like he gets what Tama's trying to do. Funk …

Thought I'd start a thread for one of the most unique workers in the history of professional wrestling, Alan Kilby. Kilby, to my knowledge, is the only deaf wrestler to have ever worked in a major promotion. He was actually deaf-mute, though I believe the deaf community no longer approve of this term. In Kilby's day, they referred to him as "the deaf and dumb star, Alan Kilby." For the most part, his deafness was treated with respect. Walton never failed to mention it and there was a series of explanations he would go through from Kilby lip reading the referee's instructions, to having a corner man who could sign for him, and Kilby not being able to hear the bel…

Apparently, Finlay doesn't have his own topic yet. I'm going to concentrate on his European footage, but add whatever you like people. Dave Finlay vs. Chic Cullen (12/7/83) This aired on December 31st and was the last WoS match shown in 1983. That was neat of the promoters to let Finlay see out the year given how busy he'd been in 1983, appearing 11 times on television on 10 different shows. Such a large number of television appearances ought to give you an indication of how successful Finlay was early in his career. He really was fantastic from 1981-83. Then, somewhere along the way, he met Paula. This was right at the beginning of their relationship. Finlay was …

I'm not a lucha expert by any means but I've seen a fair amount of Casas and a couple of Santo matches. Currently I like Casas a lot more and find him to be more versatile, but my viewing sample for Santo has been very limited. They are going to be among the best ranked luchadores on the GWE list so this should be interesting.

He was always awful, wasn't he? Or am I missing something?

Bon Orton Jr vs. Adrian Adonis (5/26/83) This is from Southwest and has Lou Thesz on colour, a man with a lot of love for Greco Roman wrestling, but much less love for street fighting. He is in town because this is a tournament for the undisputed world title. This is from The Summit in Houston and was the final. I believe this is JIP and so we don't get a great sense of what this match was like beyond the fact it was worked well between two greats. Adonis wins and Thesz presents him with two belts, a new undisputed title and the 75-year old original NWA title from back in the Ed "Strangler" Lewis days, who Thesz puts over a lot as his mentor on commentary. Int…

O, The Barbarian, what an awful finisher you had when I was growing up: a boot to the chest. Not a big boot to the head, but just the chest. As a kid, I actually liked the Faces of Fear quite a bit and was psyched for their feud in 1998. Then I became a smart mark and thought people like Barbie suck. Well I have come full circle and Barbarian is totally bitchin'. One question that has been bugging me, is his name Barbarian or The Barbarian. WWF World Tag Champs Demolition vs Powers of Pain - Philly 7/88 This is before the Demos face turn so the Powers of Pain are actually babyfaces here. The double turn was a smart move as the Powers of Pain were not that charis…

Seeing this stuff pop up youtube.com brought back a lot of memories of watching this years ago on VHS. Idolos del Ring was a local tv show based in the Ciudad Juarez region of Mexico, which is right across the border from El Paso. There was a period of time when this was filmed that this promotion was on fire, selling out on a rather consistent basis. They use a lot of locals as well as national guys. This is also one of Konnan's first big break out area's of Mexico. Just a quick rundown for folks that are not too familiar with Lucha Libre. Wrestling in Mexico, moreso years ago than now was set up similar to the US with territories. You had your main nation…

A while back, I discovered a guy who was potentially the last great super worker of British television wrestling: a rule-bender by the name of "Marvellous" Mike Bennett. I was so impressed by his bout with Steve Logan that I picked up a two-disc comp of every Bennett match to make time and promptly found no time to watch it. Now that I've caught up with the Arthur Psycho channel this is my new British wrestling baby. Bennett made his debut in March 1964 when he was 18 years old and was a blue-eye in the early part of his career. Despite appearing on TV fairly regularly in the 60s, he disappeared from the small screen in the 70s and only made sporadic appearances thro…

I think it's fair to say that Pete Roberts doesn't have the greatest reputation among the British workers. Even I'm a bit apprehensive when I see his name crop up in tape lists and I've seen more good Pete Roberts than most. But he's been delivering for me lately so I bit the bullet and got a comp made. Pete Roberts vs. Tom Tyrone (1/8/87) This was the final for the 1986 Grand Prix Belt, a real piece of shit looking belt. Joint Promotions had by far the worst looking belts in the history of professional wrestling. They were really into their tournaments at this point, which I guess was a plea/ploy to get people to tune in each week. Regardless of all that, this wa…

Disclaimer: I enjoy Kamala "for what he is," and don't expect good matches. Poor matches or not, I thought the gimmick, as originally created, worked very well in Memphis and Mid-South. At the time, I'd never seen a Kamala match, and was excited that he was coming back to the WWF in 1992. Hey, I was 11. That being said, I just don't get Adrian Street at all. He's more than decent in the WOS stuff I've seen, but my God, I've just found his in-ring work awful in Continental, Memphis and JCP. For a guy who's well-schooled in mat work, I would kind of expect him to pull out some of the crazy British matwork, but it doesn't play a big part in his matches. And he has t…

I got these discs a long time ago and never watched them. With the winter season coming up it seems like a good time to hole up with some Flair/Garvin. Ric Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin, GCW, 6/17/84 This was Flair challenging for the television title instead of Garvin challenging for the world title, but let's just pretend that Flair was interested in using the television title as a coaster. The important thing is that the action was good. They kept up a rapid pace through the 10 minutes starting with some decent chain wrestling, moving through some mid-range and then letting the fists fly as Flair got a taste of what to expect from "Hands of Stone" Ronnie Garvin. Nic…

I'm starting a thread to see if there are enough recommendations we could link to to get a thread going for him in GWE. I have only seen a handful of matches, but he's been very good in all of them, and they've been spread out over a long period of time. I suppose he suffers from working mostly Southern indies when it's the Northeast that gets the most play. Still, he's probably worth talking about.

I recently started watching a comp of Meng and Barbarian in 96 and the booking surrounding them is pretty strange(if it's not WCW with Hogan around, that is). We start 1996 with Meng against Hogan. So Meng gets to beat up on the Hulkster for a short time and then you know what happens. Hulk is sort of getting pops for this, but it's not exactly 1980s level pops. Also, in the jobber match the week before and this one, Meng wears this sweet ring robe that I wish he hadn't gotten rid of. And Sullivan is passing him "the Golden Spike" for his thumb spike finisher. Interesting stuff and about two matches later both of those are gone. Meng wrestles Johnny B. Badd…

Trish Stratus I want to do this to present my case as her being at the very least the WWF Women’s GOAT. Instead of using just her best stuff my goal is to cover every opponent she ever wrestled and I’m going to start with lesser opponents and not so great matches. One point I want to illustrate is that Trish was a very smart worker, particularly as a heel. Trish Stratus vs. Stacy Keibler, Raw October 2004 championship match Lita was injured again and the division was thin, so they noticed Stacy getting good reactions and gave her a little mini push. She got the pin against Trish’s team in 2 tag matches then pinned Molly to set this up. Smart booking …