ohtani's jacket

The 2/93 Hansen match is one I've never been as high on as others and that continued to be the case this time. The match is too evenly weighted between the pair, and I just don't care about the transitions to and from offense, especially after watching so many other Hansen matches lately. It also bugs me that he works Kawada's leg over yet the entire stretch run is Kawada throwing kicks. That wouldn't bother me ordinarily but other workers get called on that all the time. I preferred Kawada's work with Williams to this.

The Ryuma Go series from '78 to '79 is frigging awesome. Individually, I wouldn't consider any of the matches among the greatest of all-time, but the series as a whole is one of the best I've seen from the 70s. The matches are mostly worked on the mat, which means the last few minutes are spent ditching all that beautiful matwork and trying to win the match with throws, but the way the matwork escalates over the three match series is phenomenal. The matwork is more shoot style like than other 70s stuff, and when they start using open handed palm strikes and Go's mouth is bloodied hard way, the series tips from exciting juniors work to classic match-up territory. Go was a fantastic worker, but I'm still impressed that Fujinami could have a series this good with a native peer during the same period where so many guys were billed with foreigners. Gem of a series. People should check it out if they haven't.

There are different theories about why he took the name Antonio but one of them is that Rikidozan wanted to push him as a Brazilian nisei whom he found working on the fields in Sao Paulo. Nisei is the name given to second generation children born to Japanese immigrants. Inoki made it public after Rikidozan's death that he was born in Yokohama, but the nisei thing must have stuck because you can find people writing about it prior to the Ali fight. The first time he used the name was on November 9th, 1962 in Okinawa according to a Baseball magazine reference on his Wikipedia page. In the early part of the 20th century, Brazil had a labour shortage on their coffee plantations and signed a treaty with the Japanese government permitting Japanese migration to Brazil. Roughly 240,000 people immigrated between 1906 and 1993 with the second biggest period being the post-war years of 1956-60.

Lizmark spent a lot of time working trios matches with Atlantis and Rayo Jalisco Jr. in those years. After he dropped the NWA World Middleweight title to Satanico at the end of '83, I think he challenged for it again during Satanico's reign, but in the light heavyweight class, Ringo Mendoza and then Rayo Jalisco Jr were the tecnico NWA champs in that time period and nobody seemed to care about the National title. Lizmark was involved in the establishment of the WWA title in '86, but not the promoters choice for the initial champ, which was El Cobrade II.

I couldn't find any more Liger matches so I ended up watching the 1993 Top of the Super Juniors final against El Samurai. It was a pretty good match actually. Better than any of the Liger bouts. I needed to go out, but I was keen to see the finish and toyed with being late, which has to be the sign of a good match. Benoit's selling and transitions sucked, and I thought El Samurai was easily the better worker, but like Dynamite Kid, Benoit brought the offense like few others. Good match in spite of Benoit's pop-ups.

I couldn't find any more Liger matches so I ended up watching the 1993 Top of the Super Juniors final against El Samurai. It was a pretty good match actually. Better than any of the Liger bouts. I needed to go out, but I was keen to see the finish and toyed with being late, which has to be the sign of a good match. Benoit's selling and transitions sucked, and I thought El Samurai was easily the better worker, but like Dynamite Kid, Benoit brought the offense like few others. Good match in spite of Benoit's pop-ups.

The 1996 Hansen/Kobashi match was... not very good. I was surprised by how many people liked this on the '96 Yearbook. It seems obvious to me that they didn't know how to work a match where Kobashi was the champion and Hansen the challenger. The commentator wouldn't stop mentioning how young Kobashi was, how he was the new champion and the fact Hansen was 47 and yet Kobashi looked worse here than he did in 1991-93 and the match was devoid of any new ideas.

The 1996 Hansen/Kobashi match was... not very good. I was surprised by how many people liked this on the '96 Yearbook. It seems obvious to me that they didn't know how to work a match where Kobashi was the champion and Hansen the challenger. The commentator wouldn't stop mentioning how young Kobashi was, how he was the new champion and the fact Hansen was 47 and yet Kobashi looked worse here than he did in 1991-93 and the match was devoid of any new ideas.

Review is up -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-478-vintage-negro-casas-of-the-day-19/

Negro Casas/Fuerza Guerrera vs. El Hijo del Santo/Octagon, Cd. Juarez, circa 1990-91 I'm hopelessly out of the loop (not that I was ever really in it to begin with), but it looks like some Mexican channel is re-airing footage from the Cicudad Juarez territory that Alfredo Esparza grew up watching in El Paso, which is pretty cool to say the least. To me the single most interesting thing about this bout is watching Casas work with Octagon. It's almost like watching a proto version of the Casas/Dragon feud, and you can almost imagine an alternative universe where Octagon doesn't lead the jump to AAA and Casas becomes one of his regular opponents. Casas does some slick defensive takedown work in their opening exchange and makes Octagon look like a proper threat as a martial artist, which is impressive. I have a soft spot for Octagon as a poor man's version of Black Man zipping about the place, but not even Blue Panther or Satanico bothered or managed to make Octagon look this good in close quarters. Casas does this tremendously intricate sell of a front face lock that most wrestlers wouldn't bother doing so early in a match (if at all) where he's fighting it every inch of the way and trying to get his chin over the top of Octagon's forearm to alleviate the pressure. He counters with a backdrop suplex, staggers for a bit, then backs away grasping at his teeth. At that's just the detail he put into the opening exchange. He also does a tremendous job of selling Santo's matwork. Santo is super aggressive, but Casas is on another plane here. He makes Santo's signature mat spots look like Santo is out to get a piece of him and puts them over like nobody I've seen before. The Fuerza/Santo exchanges are fairly tame by comparison. Not bad per se just regular. Fuerza bumped harder and faster for Octagon than anybody else, and made his armdrags look like a million bucks, but this was a quiet night for him. Really great standoff between Casas and Octagon to end the first caida. Casas looks to assert himself physically and gets his feathers ruffled. You can see his temper flare as he points at Octagon and it proves his undoing as he rushes him, which is exactly what you don't want to do against a worker like Octagon, who if nothing else had fantastic reflexes. After spending most of the bout getting roughed up, Casas pops Octagon with a straight shot. The ref questions whether it was a closed fist and Casas threatens to pop him one too. Then he takes Octagon to school. There's something Ric Flair-ish about Casas at times. Different offense, but a similar approach. His barrage of kicks here is definitely a forerunner to the Dragon feud where he'd also add insult to injury by showing he could "shoot" too. Casas crouching low as they prepare to lock up and delivering a type of low angle enzuigiri kick is probably my favouite spot of the match. Octagon tears Casas to pieces with his retaliatory blows and Casas' selling is again sublime. The rudos finally get to assert a bit of control through the end of the second caida into the third, but they're dealing with superheroes in the classic tednico sense here and it doesn't last long. I can't stop talking about Casas' selling, but it's just non-stop great. He manages to get Santo in a hold for a few seconds until Santo grabs Casas' foot and begins his counter. Few wrestlers would sell agony in another worker taking the leg, but that's exactly what Casas does. He's just on all the time. He even fights the counter instead of giving up position, which a lot of lucha workers do when they're transitioning. Then he limps to his corner when Fuerza breaks the hold. That level of commitment on a run-of-the-mill Juarez appearance is impressive. The tercera caida doesn't have a whole lot of pizzazz to it despite some signature stuff from the tecnicos. The workers look a bit tired toward the end. Still, a pretty good match with an outstanding performance from Casas.

So, I'm watching Herodes on Eurosport in 1991 and the finish doesn't seem as though it went to plan. Any idea what's going on here?

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 44 Kwick-Kick Lee vs. Crusher Brannigan (4/7/82) East meets West in this international heavyweight contest. It's kind of weird watching a World of Sport match that doesn't feature a British or European worker, but it was actually pretty good for what it was. Maeda was over with the Bolton crowd and they reacted well to the all-in style of the two heavyweights. Maeda was actually a fairly decent worker in his pre-UWF days. The stories always say that he hated the wrestling he was exposed to at this time, but you couldn't tell it from his in-ring attitude. Then again it's hard to believe he'd be at the forefront of the shoot style revolution watching him sell for a guy like Brannigan. Brannigan cut a promo afterwards, which is always fun watching the North Americans do. Now it's turn for a big batch of Eurosport, which surprisingly enough isn't as bad as I was expecting. Steve Regal vs. Colonel Brody (Eurosport, circa 1990) Steve Regal vs. Drew McDonald (Eurosport, circa 1991) A couple of tidy Regal bouts. He looks really smooth here. Nice arm work, fluid bumping and selling. Orig Williams is the commentator here and makes the prophetic comment that Regal will end up working for WCW and the WWF. I have to say I much prefer Williams as a commentator to a wrestler, though he's shocking at times like in the McDonald bout where he won't stop calling Big Daddy the greatest British Heavyweight of all-time (greater than Assirati and Billy Robinson in Orig's words -- yuck.) At other times his duclet tones remind me of Bill McLaren. McDonald looked in pretty good shape in the Regal bout. He still seems like a case of unfulfilled potential to me, but he looked good here. Brody also looked better than usual. Perhaps the common factor was Regal. An astute observation there, huh? Steve Casey vs. Johnny South (Eurosport, circa 1991) I think a lot of these are from the same taping. Some catch promotion called EWF. For some reason, Williams was trying to push South as an Irishman. I guess that explains the name change in Reslo to "Shaun" South. I'm pretty sure he was from Manchester originally. Orig did drop a piece of knowledge on me that Casey was the son of Wild Angus. I either didn't know that or had forgotten it, as Walton never mentioned it on air. South is one of my favourite post-WoS workers when he dials down the shtick a bit and this was a fun bout with some good action. Steve Adonis vs. Herodes (Eurosport, circa 1991) Yes Herodes is that Herodes, and he looks pretty good in a non-lucha setting for a guy who was already past his prime in Mexico. Unfortunately, Orig goes off on this wild tangent about how Adonis is a first year guy and doesn't have the knowledge or know-how to compete with a guy like Herodes. He wouldn't shut up about it despite the fact Adonis had been around for a few years by that point. He name dropped Hogan here claiming that it was Adonis' ambition to reach the same heights as Hogan but he had a long way to go. It was almost bordering on a burial at times. McDonald got involved at ringside, but there was some sort of miscommunication over the finish, and after an amateurish mix-up, Adonis had the sheepish task of reacting on the mic to some outside interference that didn't really happen. The Eurosport matches are short, but they're better than a lot of the later Reslo stuff.

Ric Flair & Arn Anderson vs. Dusty Rhodes & Ronnie Garvin, WWW, 2/22/86 The Risky Business Boys. The crowd is super hot for this. Shortish bout with the faces dominating on offence. Flair takes a beating in the early going. The finish sees Garvin knock Flair out again and the faces celebrate like a "kid with a new toy." Crockett is super excited the punch during the wrap-up. Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 2/22/86 Tony suggests Garvin can knock Flair out any time he likes. Garvin compares people who like Flair to people who thought Adolf Hitler and Charlie Manson were great men. That's a bit harsh. Says he's driving a truck four hours a week so that he can claim a truck driver beat Ric Flair and that the new $30,000 big gold belt is a hell of an incentive. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson promo, WCW, 2/22/86 Arn cuts a solid promo about being the world television champ and running with Flair before Tony & David drop some footage of Garvin knocking Flair out after a 60 minute time limit draw. Flair delivers an impassioned rant about Crockett and Schiavone always looking to insult him. He tells Crockett to warn Garvin that if keeps messing around with him the same thing that happened to Dusty is going to happen to him. Tony has a smug look of satisfaction afterward. And that's the end of disc one.

I think Jumbo looks good in the 70s stuff I've watched and you can see him progressing and growing, but I do think he's being carried in the sense that I don't think he'd be having a laundry list of great matches if he was wrestling other young guys and not some of the bigger names in the business. The point is there's a disconnect between that and the claim that he's top 10 for the decade on tape or even top 30 in years where's enough footage to evaluate that. I don't have any say in what others have told you before, and I'm not suggesting you change anything about the way you rank Jumbo. I'm exploring the claim. I might even come around to your way of thinking who knows, but it's not entirely about leading a match. Steamboat's contributions to matches called by Flair seems greater thus far than what Jumbo has brought to his bouts.

I miss the Truth I came of age reading that paper, even if at times I needed shower after consuming it. The TV guide was the go to for WWF results for sure I had a WWF magazine subscription in 89-90 and it wasnt cheap either. First time I remembered WWF on screen here it was a Superstars where Hacksaw was being choked out by Andre. We owned a video store and WM4 was the first event we had on VHS The first episode of Suoerstars I saw had Hacksaw fight Andre and attack him with the 2x4 afterwards. I remember getting into the Summer Slam '88 build and then seeing the Beefcake/Outlaw Ron Bass angle and being hooked. I can still remember Hogan showing up after his hiatus and having no idea who he was.

The only time I got to see SNME growing up was the clips on Superstars. We got all the PPVs free-to-air, albeit months behind, so we lived from PPV to PPV with spoilers in the TV guide. I've seen matches from SNME but I've never seen an entire episode. Maybe I ought to rectify that.

Ted was a good worker, but regardless of his credentials. his WWF matches weren't as good as Boss Man's. I agreed with Matt on that point categorically after watching their matches, and since Boss Man wasn't being carried I don't see how the metric is skewered. I'm sure there is a point where Jumbo no longer defers to his more experienced opponent and begins asserting himself as a worker. When he reaches the point where he deserves the majority of the credit for how good his matches are is the point where his prime begins, IMO.

I don't know if I've ever made a list that I would consider definitive. I will say that I watch/listen to more than just about anybody else during voting periods since I tend to focus my viewing or listening solely on the project during the polling time, but ultimately the list I produce is my own. I will say, as an aside, that if you're making a list of the best 60s albums and don't include a significant amount of jazz albums that you have no claims to a definitive list given how far ahead of other genres jazz was in the first few years of full lps (and that's after listening to a fair whack of the acclaimed non-jazz 60s albums.) None of the jazz albums that made my top 10 for the 60s were obscure. The 70s list I made was more eclectic. I don't think I'm down on Jumbo. I like 70s Jumbo. To me it's a matter of being realistic. Take the 1977 Mil match. If you ask me that match was all Mil. There's no way Jumbo was calling the shots. You could argue that Mil never had matches that good usually and certainly not with anyone outside of the Destroyer, but I'd argue he didn't get that many opportunities in Japan and that all touring workers knew what side their bread was buttered on when it came to working Baba's boy. Jumbo is patently good in the bout, but is he the guy calling the shots and carrying the action? I don't think so. Is he doing anything that sets the match apart (i.e. selling from underneath)? Not really. The match is cool because Mil busts out a bunch of choice offence. I suspect Jumbo came into his prime some time in the early to mid 80s and had a prime that was no more than 10 years just like most wrestlers. That still makes him a great worker, possibly the greatest of all time, but it's a hell of a lot more realistic to me than over-inflated claims of twenty year primes. I will watch some 70s Fujinami soon. I might well be wrong comparing them, but I think it's better to compare workers with the least degrees of separation than to claim Jumbo wasn't as good as non-70s Japanese talent.

That's what I'm watching to find out. It should jump off the screen if that's the case. When I watch his 70s work, I keep thinking about him in regard to Tatsumi Fujinami and Jaguar Yokota who also made their starts in the 70s, or even a comparison with Misawa & Co. in the early 90s. I can't shake the fact that he's still an up and comer. K The question I would put to you is this: were the others having ****+ matches against world-class opponents as up and comers? Does Fujinami have a match from the 70s you'd put against Jumbo vs. Terry Funk or Jumbo vs. Billy Robinson or any of the Jumbo-Baba vs. Funks tags or Jumbo vs. Brisco? Does Misawa as Tiger Mask II have anything you'd put against that stuff? The first thing I'd say to that is that I don't think Jumbo was having ****+ matches against world-class opponents as an up and comer. I don't think either the '75 Funks tag or the Kimura match is a **** star match. And even if I did, my focus would be on whether I thought it was a **** match because of Jumbo and not what the star rating was. Secondly, I'd say if you don't know whether Fujinami was having matches as good as Jumbo then how can you say Jumbo was one of the best in the world? Seems hyperbolic to me. I generally loathe when people say such and such is the "best in the world" unless they can make a definitive claim about that sort of statement (i.e. after they've watched enough.) I can't tell you whether I think Fujinami had as many **** matches as Jumbo until I work out how many **** I think Jumbo had since it's probably a sixth of the number that made your list. What matters to me is how they compare as workers not their output. Jumbo being led about by the nose by the biggest stars of the 70s isn't illuminating in regard to his work. I watched that 1980 Jumbo/Funk match not that long ago and I don't think Jumbo looked "great" there and that was the next decade. As far as Misawa and Co. go, I don't think they were put in a position to have significant singles matches until 1990. Their growth period as singles workers occurred from that point and is more comparable w/ 70s Jumbo than any of their 80s work. I don't think a straight fifth year Jumbo vs. fifth year Misawa comparison tells us anything. When I watch 70s Jumbo, I'm comparing it to 1992 Kawada vs. Hansen and not Kawada's Footloose work. That seems reasonable to me. But you can ignore Misawa and Co. Marty Jones is a good 70s example that was brought up. Rocco and Steve Grey as well.

That's what I'm watching to find out. It should jump off the screen if that's the case. When I watch his 70s work, I keep thinking about him in regard to Tatsumi Fujinami and Jaguar Yokota who also made their starts in the 70s, or even a comparison with Misawa & Co. in the early 90s. I can't shake the fact that he's still an up and comer.

So I watched the 1976 Rusher Kimura match, and despite the fact I'm skeptical of Jumbo being as good as the great 70s workers who had many more years experience, I do think it shows what a natural Jumbo was and how far he'd progressed in a few short years. It's by no means a great match, but already you can see a number of "Jumbo-isms" albeit in a more youthful context. It's weird seeing Kimura look like a smaller version of Hashimoto, but he's basically the same limited worker as the 80s version. Jumbo doesn't exactly defer to him, but he doesn't stamp his mark all over the match either. I'm sure Baba kept him under a tight leash, so he probably did what he was told at this point, but I think "Jumbo was one of the best young workers of the 70s" is a more apt description than Jumbo was already a top 10 worker. He looked better than most comparable young worker runs, but better than all but a handful of workers? It seems like a stretch.

Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 1/11/86 Ronnie Garvin's hobbies, WCW, 1/11/86 Garvin mangles a series of promos. The basic gist is that he has Flair's number, the Nature Boy is afraid of him, and Garvin is after the belt and the half a million dollars that comes along with it. It's a shame that Garvin wasn't a better talker, but at least it sounds like he was ad-libbing his stuff. Ric Flair/Ronnie Garvin brawl, WCW, 1/18/86 Flair butts his way into Garvin's interview time and cheap shots him. He throws Garvin into the ring, tosses the ref and jobber out and gives Garvin a hiding before sitting on his chest and mocking Garvin's signature pin. The Horsemen show up and it looks like they intend to send Garvin to the hospital, but Dusty and Co make the save. All hell breaks loose and Garvin knocks Flair out off camera. The segment ends with Garvin and friends cutting a defiant promo as the Horsemen carry Flair off. Later, the Horsemen are out with J.J. Dillion claiming it was a cheap shot and Garvin must have had something in his fist to knock Flair out. Tully wants Garvin & Co. to step in the ring like men and Arn considers it a personal insult since Flair is blood. Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 1/25/86 Tony calls Garvin's punch "the shot heard round the world," which is a cheeky bit of embellishment. Garvin stumbles through a decent promo about how Flair better call the IRS man and tell him next year when he files income tax he's going to be in a much lower bracket and how he better start selling his limousine and his jet plane and pawn his Rolex to pay his tax bill. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 1/25/86 Flair cuts a promo where he shows off his ass and promises the ladies he'll start wearing jeans like Magnum TA and the Rock 'n' Roll Express so they can see why Slick Ric and Space Mountain are synonymous. He claims Garvin had something in his hand and takes us through the footage. Flair was awesome here. I guess everybody loves it when heels commentate over footage and rattle off a biased account of what happened, but Flair really was sublime here. Crockett keeps goading him about the punch and Ric says he can understand why they're trying to embarrass him because he's gotten to the point in his career where he's so great and so good that once in a while they've got to show the people that he's an average human being on his worst day. Then he switches tack and fires off a series of great lines before pinching Tony's cheek and saying "Tony Schiavone, you tell your wife I said hello brother." Even by Flair's standards that was a pretty tremendous three and half minute promo. Ric Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin, 2/2/86 This wasn't as good as the studio bout from December. They only went about 15 minutes when really a main event length bout was what I wanted to see next. There really wasn't any way the action was going to be any more intense than what we'd already seen so the narrative scope needed to be wider. Instead there as an element of smoke and mirrors. Garvin had Flair pinned for a four count and then knocked him out for a seven count, but when he tried reviving Young, Flair struck with a knee from behind and him even though Garvin had a foot on the ropes. Crockett began blabbering about it and Flair screamed at him to shut up. Served its purpose in terms of making Flair look scared, and gave Garvin ammunition for future promos. but forgettable otherwise. Ron Garvin promo, WCW, 2/2/86 Ron Garvin promo, WCW, 2/9/86 Garvin says Flair is running on empty, Garvin has his number, and he's not gonna quit. He's going to keep trying harder and 1986 is the year Flair is going down.

I think Casas at his best is one of the true geniuses of professional wrestling, but there are plenty of years where he wouldn't be in the top 10 whether it's because of footage issues or the way CMLL is booked. When he had a program like the Dandy and Dragon feuds in '92 or the Santo feud from late '95 to 1998 and the tag feud that followed with Bestia and Scorpio Jr. then he has enough to consider him on, but the dark years of '94-95, or years where there's limited footage such as 1991, it's not really possible. You're going on faith. Then pick a random year like 2003 or 2007. Maybe I'm taking things too literally, but I think there's probably only half a dozen years or so where he was definitively top 10 in the world. Maybe more than that, but probably only around a third of his career on tape. And based on the UWA we do have, it's not really as good as his 90s CMLL stuff. I'm sure he had great stuff prior to '92 that we'll never see, but I'm not sure he had whole chunks of it.