ohtani's jacket

"Ryu" is difficult to pronounce. A lot of people pronounce it as "roo," but that's not right either.

The full name in Japanese is something like: "Bridge of Dreams - Dome Spring in Full Bloom."

More sped up wrestling from the 1940s -- a young Ace Freeman vs. Billy Venable, Billy Raburn vs. Jack Hagen and Wild Red Berry vs. Yukon Jake. Seems the 50s style I'm enjoying was already well established by the early 40s. I need to follow fxnj's lead and dip back further in time. Roy McClarty vs. Tony Marino was a nice 10 minute TV bout w/ an established technical wrestling going up against a promising up and comer. Marino got a big kick out toward the end. Danny McShane vs. Pepper Gomez was a long and incomplete title match. Not as exciting as the Garibaldi fight but McShane again looked like a guy you wouldn't want to pick a fight with. Next up is an international heavyweight bout between Australia's Pat Meehan and Turkey's Ali Pasha. I like the international flavour to 50s wrestling. It reminds me of WoS where you'd have guys from all over the UK and Europe competing along with wrestlers from Africa, India, Pakistan, the West Indies, and other parts of the Commonwealth. Oddly, the impression it creates is that wrestling had more of a global reach in the 1950s than it does today. Perhaps that's changing though with the Cruiserweight tournament. Meehan is one of the more awkward looking guys I've seen so far but it's kind of endearing. He reminds me a bit of Ray Steele. Ali Pasha is a technical wrestler-cum-brawler with a bunch of inside moves. Think Sid Cooper, Zoltan Boscik or Tally Ho Kaye. That sort of worker. The mix of Meehan's awkward looking holds and Pasha's dirty tricks makes this an entertaining bout. Hot on the heels of that is a run of Baron Michele Leone matches. His opponents aren't the greatest in terms of skill. First up there's a guy called The Great Scott (with a jacket Pierroth Jr would be in awe of) and a tough brawler from Milwaukee by the name of Hans Schnabel. It's clear these aren't going to be mat classics, but the blend of Leone's oddball charisma and his direct brawling and grappling style makes them perfectly satisfying Leone showcases. I still don't know how good he actually was but watching him work I keep thinking what if a Jimmy Garvin worked this way or even a WWF era Jake Roberts. It would completely revolutionise what we think of those guys and seems like something they were capable of as the degree of difficulty isn't that high. Leone sticks to his man and never lets up. Maybe he's forsaking selling, but I like the contrast between his flamboyant (albeit slightly weird) entrances and his no nonsense grappling style.

Black Terry vs. Aero Boy, Funcion Estelar, 3/18/16 Black Terry, what drives this man? What keeps him in the fight game? Lacing up the boots, ignoring the lumps and bruises, tending to the cuts. Terry is almost the same age as my father but still he fights. The early exchanges here showed that Terry isn't as quick as he used to be. He can't bump like he used to, can't pull a kick to the back like a young man might, but as soon as this goes to the outside Terry is in his element. Outside the ring. Terry is a master. No matter how many times I've seen Terry brawl around ringside it's still an awesome sight. Aero Boy does his part by bumping into a row of chairs, but in the main it's Terry's measured brawling, his use of colour (blood) and the ripped shirt motif that make this memorable. Terry may not be able to work lucha exchanges like he used to, but he can still tease a lucha submission with the best of them and he also knows how to get plenty of bang for his buck out of that well worn backcracker of his. The aesthetics also help here. Lucha brawls always work best in a dingy environment. Back in the day, even when they held matches in major venues, the poor lightning and grainy footage created a unique environment for lucha brawls. That's been lost in the bright new era where major lucha venues are fully lit and have electronic hordings advertising Japanese camera makers. The handheld approach to Terry's apuesta feuds creates a Dogme style effect like we're watching some kind of documentary about Black Terry's soul searching on the 2016 circuit. This was only a mano a mano. What awaits us in the apuesta match?

That jarrett421 channel is a treasure trove of stuff most of it from the old Hollywood Legion. Some of the matches have been online for seven years, which just goes to show there's always stuff out there to discover. Whoever the uploader is, he has impeccable taste. Don Sugai Matsura vs. Dave Reynolds is a short bit of film from the 1940s and is sped up a bit, but check out the state of the art shit they were doing in 1940. That was a revelation. Baron Michelle Leone vs. Billy Varga is probably a better look at Leone than the Romero match as it's more of a Leone showcase bout than the equal billing of the Romeo fight. Really interesting worker. I'm trying to think of a comparison but all I can really think of is Ron Jeremy if Ron Jeremy were a wrestler star who could do a little bit of everything. Sandor Szabo vs. Roger Mackay is a much better look at Szabo than the Snyder tag match I saw him in and gives you an idea of why he was given the World Heavyweight title back in the day. So many new names for me from this era. Argentina Apollo is a really fun barefoot wrestler from Buenos Aires who has an entertaining bout with Bob Royer in some 60s footage. Danny McShane is perhaps my new favourite wrestler. A stiff brawler who allegedly killed two men with his pile driver, he has a sensational scrap with a guy named Gino Garibaldi. Garibaldi goes right after him and almost knocks his block off. Best brawl I've seen in a while. Ace Freeman is another new name. Sound technical wrestler who has a fine match with Frenchman Andre Drapp. Most recently I watched a another fine contest between Don Arnold and Tarzan Tourville, later known as Tarzan Tyler. The impressive thing about this 50s footage thus far is that the skill level of just about everyone has been really high. Particularly the journeymen types. Maybe the old timers like Buddy Rogers were right about the older generation having more holds. Of course I haven't really gotten in to looking at the gimmick workers yet, but McShane and Leone have strong personalities and have still impressed with their fundamentals.

I don't follow wrestling writing that closely. I mainly read this site and a few others like Segunda Caida and Paul Cooke's site. I honestly care more about match recs than anything else at this stage, but even if I were interested in new theories on wrestling I don't they would be able to escape the match as the primary text.

There's another McGill match against Mad Monty LeDux that's pretty cool. A real scrap with McGill showing plenty of aggression. Baron Michele Leone vs. Rito Romero is well worth watching. Leone had an amazing look. I don't think there's ever been a wrestler who looked quite like him. Maybe a jobber somewhere. Romero is, of course, a famous luchador. The dropkick attack he used to win a fall here is something I would ape if I were a professional wrestler. Very cool.

That McGill/Torres match was indeed awesome. I've love to see more Torres. He was pretty damn slick. I also saw a match between Larry Chene and Gordon Hessell where they teased some open palm strike exchanges and one of them every rolled up into a George Kidd ball albeit less compact.

People don't just view wrestling through its matches, though. A lot of people focus on workers, others focus on promotions, TV shows, and entire years or decades worth of footage. It seems to me that there is already plenty of variety out there.

Also why are we pretending that wrestling men like Watts and Cornette didn't fail in the 90s? I don't believe there is a single booker from the old-school era that could have succeeded from the 90s onward.

Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad aren't filmed in front of a live audience and don't feature actors trying to elicit reactions from the crowd. The turning point in wrestling was when wrestlers began addressing the crowds directly in every single promo. That led to 25 minute opening monologues and filtered through to pretty much every angle that took place in the ring. Wrestlers battling over the mic and calling on the audience to participate along with the proliferation of call and response catchphrases were the roots of "this is awesome chants." If you wanna have a go at the crowds you should also have a go at Austin's "What" shit, Road Dog, The Rock, and so on. And at the TV writers and the writing committees. But remember that when it first began it as novel. The WWF in 1997 was fresh and exciting (at least at the main event level.) The problem with wrestling today is that they haven't done anything that fresh since. Wrestling today is not that different from 1997. Certainly not as different as wrestling in 1997 was from 1977.

I suspect he was raising valid points in that interview too. Well, let's see: Rogers says some of the things they're doing today insult people's intelligence and that there's no need to resort to them. He thinks they should get back to wrestling and that there should be more rules. In his day there were suspensions and fines, and he tells some story about how he was suspended for two years from the state of New York for shoving a guy after a match was over. The interviewer mentions that nowadays guys are bringing chairs into the ring and Rogers says they use everything next to machine guns if they can carry it in there. He says it's ridiculous because there's some super wrestlers like Backlund and Muraco. The interviewer blames it on the promoters and Rogers goes off on a tangent about how wrestling can still draw because it's the second oldest sport in the world next to running. The interviewer senses that Rogers wouldn't mind getting back into the sport and having some control over it and Rogers admits he wouldn't mind getting back into the business in a "supervisory" role. Rogers knows he could do a lot for wrestling and mentions a young guy he managed in Florida who is the greatest athlete he's seen in wrestling in the last 25 years and would set the place on fire. That man being Jimmy Snuka. Rogers calls wrestling the greatest show on earth. It's got action, it's got strength, it's got "everything about it," and if they resorted more to wrestling it would even be greater. The public don't want to see constant kicking and hair pulling. They want to see some holds. In Rogers' day they had holds where a guy would give up or you'd beat a guy with a hold and you hardly see that today. The interviewer says everyone has a costume these days and Rogers says you don't need that. There's such a thing as charisma and being colourful but you can overdo that too. Later on, the interview gets a good line in about how Rogers used to hang out with Nat King Cole and how he couldn't imagine Backlund hobnobbing with Barbara Streisand. ................................................................ You can interpret Rogers' comments anyway you like. Maybe there was more wrestling in Rogers' day but there was also a hell of a lot of the stuff that "insulted people's intelligence." And everything that is wrong about wrestling "today" can be found in Sheik vs. Slaughter, which last I checked is considered pretty much the height of that era.

It happens with every generation. I watched a sit down interview with Buddy Rogers where he shat all over the early 80s WWWF that Titans review. One day Ospreay and Ricochet will be lecturing some young punks on how to work properly.

Black Terry, Jr's handhelds were better back then! "What's a handheld, Grandpa Parties?"

I can only imagine a future 30 years from now where people are making "Best of the 10s" sets and arguing that "This is awesome!" chants are better than whatever we've evolved into then. These young guys with their Twitter will be the AIM messengers of tomorrow. Already folks are nostalgic for Pokemon so the next wave has already begun. TIME STANDS STILL FOR NO MAN. young sprogs.

"This is awesome!" chants suck but at the same time it should be acknowledged that there's a type of romanticism involved in looking back at old footage and "crowd gazing" whether it be atmosphere, fashion, previous social norms (like smoking at a sports event), or even enthusiasm and the heat generated. I mean the whole crowd argument is no different from watching an old Boston Garden crowd and thinking it's better than a 2016 NBA crowd or watching grainy, poorly lit lucha footage and thinking it's better than a bright, sterilized Arena Mexico plastered with commercials for Japanese camera makers. The thing about wrestling is that if you're caught up in the here and now then it's like following a sport where you care what happens next. If you watch older stuff then it's like watching old movies where the aesthetics are important. With that in mind, I look forward to seeing the cut-off point for today's whippersnappers where they stop keeping up with the current product and wax lyrically about 2010 or 12.

The real enemy is the internet. In which case Parv should go off the grid.

Benito Gardini vs. Al Warshawksi -- Gardini is worth watching if you like fat boy wrestling and I know many of you do. He's almost like Super Porky without the comedy. They work a few decent holds and Gardini is fun. Billy Darnell vs. Hans Hermann -- Hermann was a big strong "German" in the Fritz Von Erich mold. Some decent grappling in this and some nice strength holds. Darnell worked Hermann over with some nice punch combos and looked like a decent worker. Not much to see here.

Outrageously hipster. I thought this was the "absolute favourite wrestling companies" thread not your most staid opinions on pro-wrestling! Besides, IWRG is the only really hipster pick. Maybe JWP and PWFG but I also included the major promotions for Joshi and shoot style. Fred Kohler's promotion might join my list soon.

I expected Eddie to fall further than this since there wasn't much critical attention paid to him between 2006 and 2016 but I guess it's a testament to how popular he was with fans that he remains one of their all-time favourite wrestlers. There are differing opinions on how good Eddie was before his 1997 heel turn where it all came together character-wise, I'm not a huge fan of his early tecnico stuff in Mexico, but I imagine if you grew up watching the Ciudad Juarez territory that you might have been into his as a rising young babyface. His Los Gringos run has some bright spots (particularly the trios match where Eddie turns on Santo) but is mostly overrated, especially the tag matches with Santo and Octagon. There were people who swore by his New Japan work and for a long time his 1996 BoSJ bout with Benoit was held up as an example of juniors wrestling "done right." People also enjoyed his early babyface work in WCW. But for me it all came together in that 1997 heel run, which was the catalyst for his artistic peak from 2004-05. Eddie was phenomenal in those years, though the toll it took on his body was devastating. Eddie took a while to adjust to the WWE. He wasn't a front runner for best worker in the company during the Smackdown Six era, but from that group of workers only Mysterio rivaled the creative peak that Eddie achieved in its wake. The biggest compliment I can pay Guerrero from that run is that it was very similar to Austin, Rock and Foley from the Attitude era in that it didn't matter whether they played heel or face, their charisma transcended either role. Eddie was the same. Hugely charismatic. The total it took on him is a dark shadow on all this praise but his ring work deserves to be remembered.

I feel like I wrote a lot about Tenryu in his nominee thread so I'll just repost that:

Jim Dobie vs. Lou Britton -- Nice bout. Britton was the superior wrestler but Dobie was able to evade him and eventually grind him down. Britton had a quality moustache. Don Beitelman vs Dick Hatcher -- solid heavyweight contest. Pretty even contest on the mat but a bit too much lying around. Good skills for a pair of big men. Beitelman went on to become Don Curtis, longtime tag partner of Mark Lewin.

EMLL/CMLL 1983-1992 and 1996-97 Joint Promotions 1974-1984 JWP 1992-1997 All Japan Women 1977-1993 WCW 1989-1994 UWF I & II 1984-85 and 1988-90 PWFG 1991-1993 RINGS 1991-1999 IWRG 2008-2010

Black Terry vs. Barbaro Cavernario, Cara Lucha 6/11/16 Holy crap this was awesome. I haven't seen Terry wrestle for a couple of years and barely recognised him with the bald head and yellow t-shirt, but brawling Terry was always my favourite kind of Terry and he brought the same level of stiffness as his Hechicero matches from a few years back. I watched this straight after the LA Park/Rush Liga Elite mano a mano and blow for blow this was the more violent match. The older and lumpier Terry becomes the greater his legacy becomes. Cavernario deserves a ton of credit for being the perfect sounding board for Terry's straight forward brawling approach, but from my point of view this led to a rush of memories of 2008 clips against Navarro set to The Unforgiven and Terry being the master of minimalist lucha brawling. The finish was a poor editorial decision from the bookers, but Terry remains indomitable. He just goes on and on.

I'm talking about what looks like a real fight. Does it mean a brawl or something that looks like actual wrestling? Or something that's less co-operative looking or choreographed or rehearsed?