ohtani's jacket

There were basically two types of comedy in World of Sport -- the full blown comedy acts and the guys who would incorporate comedy into their matches while still maintaining a veneer of seriousness. You could argue that Kellett belongs to the latter category, but I regard him as a full on comedy act. The most interesting thing about the WoS comedy acts was how Walton struggled to explain their existence in kayfabe terms (e.g. he's a comedian, he's playing to the gallery.) I find that fascinating. The Kellett bout I suggest people sample is the one against Johnny Czeslaw, who belonged to category two above. The best Kellett opponent I've seen is Bobby Barnes. There's a clear undercurrent between a hard arse Yorkshireman and an exotico that doesn't need explaining. I've seen three of their bouts and they're highly entertaining. For what it's worth, WoS didn't start airing on TWC until 2004 and even then nobody outside of British wrestling circles discussed Kellett much.

Why would Takayama do that, though? I'm not familiar with the era at all and I wasn't listening to the commentary when I watched it, so it would have been nice if there had been some visual clues that Takayama was deliberately wrestling Nishimura's style.

Nishimura vs. Takayama is a fascinating bout. I'm not sure it makes a lick of sense for Takayama to try to wrestle Nishimura's style, and when he started throwing him about at the end I couldn't help but wonder why he didn't manhandle him from the start. Then I started wondering if it would have made more sense for Nishimura to have countered some sort of big time Takayama strike to start with and forced him to work from beneath and win the match the hard way. But if you take the match at face value, it was a classy old style build full of neat Nishimura moments. I loved his modified single leg takedown out of the corner that he followed up with a pin point diving knee from the top. I'm not sure if Nishimura is a complete worker, but he does so much cool shit in his bouts.

I agree that Toyota vs. Yoshida starts off as an awesome styles clash, but I'm not so sure it turns into a no-selling spotfest. After the awesome start, Toyota botches a top rope dive to the outside and then takes Yoshida on a shitty tour of the arena. Then when they get back into the ring they struggle to get back into the groove, but it's basically a finishing stretch from there and there's more near falls than no sells. Toyota wins by throwing punches, which isn't something you see from her every day, so I'd dispute the fact it descends into her usual act. She's trying to do her shit at the same time as Yoshida is trying to counter with a match winning submission. It's not the greatest stretch run by any means, but the soft middle is worse than the finish.

Nishimura vs. Tanahashi from 2003 was cool until the shitty throwback to countout finishes of ol', I think there's some credence to MJH's observation that Nishimura's offense is too counter based. He was a great defensive wrestler, but working from a defensive position makes him seem weaker in a kayfabe sense than everyone he faces. Young Tanahashi was solid in this, but took too much of the bout because of the way Nishimura liked to stay back and work his way from a defensive position into a counter attacking opportunity. It's a cool strategy for hardcore wrestling junkies like ourselves, but in a "sport" where perception is everything, Nishimura often comes off like a trusted midcard hand sent out there to make others look good. He did have excellent European uppercuts, though. What a potent weapon those were.

Jerome Kaino made a belly-to-back tackle on Digby Ioane during the 2011 Rugby World Cup semi-final:

Nishimura vs. Suzuki was cool for the time it lasted, but Nishimura gave Suzuki way too much of the bout and a guy with legit MMA experience is always going to make a Dory Funk Jr. clone look dithering. A backslide counter was a lame finish against an MMA dude, but I suppose the good thing about this bout is that it defined Nishimura's comfort zone. Circa 1980 facsimiles with Fujinami are a chance to shine, but a worked shoot was a step beyond.

How come you didn't elaborate on why MS-1/Chicana was disappointing?

The 9/17/00 Toyota/Ito match is heavily clipped, but it's notable for the fact that Toyota still has her 90s look and works exactly like you'd expect Manami Toyota to work. It was immediately noticeable that she shelved the rolling cradle in her '01 and '02 matches with Ito and was working a different style in those bouts. It's hard to tell how good a match is when it's clipped to shreds, but the thing I'll always remember about it is that during the finish they botched a powerbomb off the middle turnbuckle. Toyota's leg bounced off the ropes, which is something I've never seen before. Ito followed it up with a double foot stomp, but Toyota was still moving and Ito didn't hit it anywhere near as cleanly as she usually did. It actually looked like she missed, but that was the move she won the big red belt with. Not the greatest moment in wrestling folklore.

The first Lizmark/Parka match was awesome. The next two were poor.

I liked the 2/24/02 Toyota vs. Ito title match as well. At this point, I'd take Toyota vs. Ito over Toyota vs. Kyoko despite Inoue being a better performer than Ito. They have great chemistry together. It's only two Ito matches, but Toyota's veteran work has been better than expected.

I enjoyed the Nishimura vs. Akiyama match from 2003. G1 matches are worked differently from MUGA bouts. You can't work the mat as much; instead the bout has to be more dynamic. I thought Nishimura did a pretty good job of working that style even if it didn't play to his strengths. He reminds me of Fujiwara at times, but that may be the shaved head and black trunks talking. I did sense similarities between Fujiwara's 90s New Japan appearances and Nishimura's G1 work, however. I also watched Nishimura vs. Kanemoto from the 2004 G1, I believe. I could barely recognise Kanemoto from his 90s days. He seemed to have adopted a quasi-MMA look. Nishimura gave him way more than a heavyweight usually would. He took a constant pounding from the lighter man but pulled through with one of the more spectacular finishes you'll see this year. Come to think of it, most of Nishimura's finishes have been creative thus far.

The thing is, at least on paper, with the emphasis on mat work, the springy mat, and the rolling bumps, lucha should be far more conductive to giving guys the chance to go all-out and deliver an exciting match even on small shows than, say, peak AJ and NOAH. And, as you pointed out earlier, lucha trios guys often have the huge advantage of performing against long-term rivals, giving them an endless bag of tricked out counters and call back spots to sprinkle throughout the match. What could stop them being great every time out? To me, that actually was the case with peak IWRG. I haven't followed them in a few years but during that 2009-20111 period Negro Navarro, Solar, and other maestros, most of which were over 50, were tearing shit up almost every time they showed up. But then I'd look at CMLL and see such talentedand athletic young guys being boxed into working by the numbers bullshit. Anyone care to explain why CMLL/AAA is the be-all-end-all of lucha? If trios matches were the least bit special -- only used in the main event, for example -- there'd be a greater chance of them being classic matches, but because practically every match is a trios bout they only stand out if they're a championship bout, if there's a hot promotional run, an awesome lead in to an apuesta bout, or one of those rare nights where everything clicks. Expecting trios matches to be great is like expecting the baseline for any promotion to be great. Since the baseline for most promotions is average, lucha's really no different to any other style of wrestling where there's the cream of the crop and everything else. It's just that the cream of the crop tends to be singles matches because of how rare they are. The IWRG guys had a nice little run with a core group of guys. The IWRG/maestros style has its flaws, but they did produce a lot of cool stuff. I just think it's tough to sell people on the indy stuff if they've never dabbed in the mainstream. Another frustrating thing about lucha is that the patches of goodness are short lived. The minis will be great for a while and then they're featured less. The Puebla locals will be great until they're no longer booked. IWRG will have a great run and then it loses its TV or the booking heads in a different direction. Maybe there's a short program in CMLL that's great, but it's over and there's no local follow-on from it. That may be my impression from cherry picking the modern stuff, but it always feels so disorganised.

If we had more of Aguyao's 70s work, or even his 80s stuff, I could see him being regarded as a great lucha brawler, but I don't think there's any way that mechanically he can be regarded as an elite worker. I always thought he was cumbersome the majority of the time.

There are different ways to work a trios match. The reason they're generic is because they're repetitive. The vast majority of lucha matches are trios matches and therefore your mileage varies just as it does with every other style. The majority of all wrestling is boring, disappointing and generic. As fans we're looking for the moments of greatness and lucha is no different. Great lucha exists. It may exist in lesser quantity than your favourite style, but it exists. Goodear says lucha gets painted into the same box and then says it should be similar to Lawler pulling the strap down, which as far as I can tell is painting it into a box. The idea that no tecnico has ever given a fired up performance is strange to me just as the argument that Satanico is no different from Wagner or Emilio or Fuerza or Casas. There is a general concept of rudoism in lucha, but those workers were their own men. The idea of there being wrestling cavemen or wizards is odd to me. I don't think we're meant to take the gimmicks that literally. How the hell is a wizard meant to wrestle if that's the case?

I think trios wrestling can be boring a lot of the time and part of that is the predictability of the opening falls. But I think when you get used to lucha, the primera caida is like chapter 1 or the first quarter of a game. It sets the tone for how the rest of the match will go. I agree with Matt that it's probably better when the rudos win the primera and the tecnicos are forced to make a comeback in the next caida, but on the whole I'd say any problems there are have more to do with uninspired work than the structures themselves. Oftentimes when the caidas are the same length, or the segunda is long, the rhythm seems out of step. For new fans, I think the partners flooding the ring and getting pinned or submitted in succession is far more disconcerting because that's hugely choreographed and doesn't make a lot of sense compared to the wrestling we're used to. All I can say about that is you have to accept it for what it is and appreciate the times when it's well done, which it can be if the workers are in sync.

You can usually tell when the finish to the first fall is coming. It they've been on the mat they'll stand up and start working the ropes or whipping each other into the turnbuckle. If they've gone through two rounds of exchanges in a trios match (changing partners the second time) then the fall is neigh, and if's a brawling match then the beatdown reaches a natural crescendo. The second fall is often a short retaliatory fall before the all important third fall, but there are different degrees to how well that's done.

One thing I'll add to Matt's post is that the falls generally overlap. If the tecnicos win they opening fall, they'll generally dominate the opening minutes of the second fall until the rudos make their comeback, and vice versa. Since most matches are 2/3 falls, the wrestlers can lengthen or shorten the falls to create different sorts of rhythms. Generally speaking, the traditional format is a decent length opening fall, a short return fall, and a lengthy back and forward deciding fall, but workers can play around with the form. Occasionally, there will be an opening fall that looks for all money like it's a "rudo fall" but they pull a twist and have the tecnicos win. There's also a huge difference between a brawling trios, a comedy trios and a technical one, as you can probably imagine. Trios matches are almost never great for their own sake. They're almost always appetizers for a future match whether it's a short program or some far off meeting. The best trios have an issue between workers w/ the partners playing a supporting role and working mini subplots that contrast/compliment the main thread. 95% of all trios matches are perfunctory. I would dearly love for there to be a laundry list of great trios matches, but in reality there's been a handful of great ones and a bunch of really good pre-apuesta match build up. If you stacked up the best All Japan six mans along CMLL from say 1990 to 1992, you'd be hard pressed to find too many CMLL matches that compare to the best Jumbo vs. Misawa bouts (if any, really), but you would find a bunch of awesome lead in matches to some pretty great title and wager matches. That's a big point of departure, I think, because trios matches aren't really great for the sake of being great.

The language barrier becomes a factor when you're trying to work out what the hell is going on between Casas and his brother Felino in 1993 or what the Santo turn is all about. It's also a huge factor in trying to work out why two guys are feuding in a style where much of the footage is missing. Admittedly, it may not matter as much if you're watching a match here or there, and some of the biggest lucha fans are fluent in Spanish, but surely a massive chunk of psychology is understanding what's going on. I agree that Japanese and US wrestling share similarities, but that's not much of a surprise. Attempts to introduce pro-wrestling to Japan failed before the McArthur occupation, and therefore it was a naturally adopted piece of "Americana" much like baseball or even jazz. World of Sport is just as exhibition-y as lucha. If anything I'd say there are more similarities between WoS and lucha than WoS and American wrestling. Your gateway into WoS has been strong heel characters, but you can't seem to get your head around the fact that lucha is full of outstanding rudo workers. How are Breaks or McManus any better than Satanico, MS-1, Pirata Morgan, Emilio Charles Jr, Fuerza Guerrera, etc.? How can you argue that lucha is different from WoS when the dressing and undressing of holds in WoS is nothing like any other style of wrestling and the comedy acts routinely break the "third wall", so to speak? I realise you don't like high flyers, but rudos don't fly. Casas doesn't fly. Wagner doesn't fly. Nobody's suggesting you watch lucha where there's an abundance of high flying. They're suggesting you seek out stuff that's similar to the Mocho Cota you enjoyed. You keep making out that guys like Cota are the exception to the rule when it comes to lucha, but they're not. Personally, I find it odd that you've watched so few WoS matches yet have a positive attitude toward it and watched more lucha bouts but take the stance that it's inaccessible. IMO, if lucha has a high entry barrier it's because there's no-one to tell people want to watch. Japanese wrestling has been pimped for so long that people can tell you want you need to watch, but lucha fandom is still in its infancy. It's growing, but it's nothing like jdw laying out the 90s All Japan matches we should watch. Hell, if the DVDVR guys hadn't reviewed some of Alfredo's 1990 tapes, lucha fandom would probably be stuck in the dark ages. People are always defensive of the things they like. There's nothing special about lucha in that regard. When I first came online, people were defensive of the WWF. When I first got into Japanese wrestling, people were defensive of it. They used to call people "elitists" if they preferred Japanese wrestling over American wrestling. Joshi fans had to defend their genre of choice. Spotfest fans were always on the defensive. On and on it goes. If I've been defensive in this thread it's because I don't think your criticisms are fair. I don't think watching a cibernetico and making out like you're constantly flummoxed by the rules is fair when you can easily researching what's going on, and I can't understand how you're unable to recognise repeated aspects of the form in trios matches, title bouts and wager matches when you can easily do so in other forms of wrestling. But at the end of the day nobody's saying you have to like lucha. There's no point making a fuss out of it.

Sampling lucha on Galavision isn't a great way to get into it, IMO, as lucha doesn't make for great week-to-week TV. But the biggest obstacle to getting into it is this idea that it's something foreign that needs to be deciphered and interpreted. Lucha can be confusing as heck whether it's because of the language barrier, the inconsistent booking, or the lack of continuity in the television, but it's only inaccessible if you watch it randomly.

I love Steamboat more than most people here do, but this point is absolutely true. Steamboat was much better when he stuck to amateur greco-roman stuff mixed with his trademarked work-the-arm offense, he was a pretty poor martial artist. Of course, "karate fighter" is maybe the worst in-ring gimmick anyone can have, and practically nobody can sell it believably and have good matches at the same time. Trying to do this bullshit was a major part of killing Billy Graham's career. Has ANYONE ever made a successful career out of it? All I can remember are guys like Glacier and Steve Blackman, who were walking examples of why nobody should try to wrestle like that. Even heavily gimmicked "martial arts strikers" like Low-Ki, Rob Van Dam, or even Shinya Hashimoto used the karate stuff as just one part of their much larger overall bag of movez. The only really successful guys I can think of with martial arts styles were basically MMA hybrid fighters, dudes like Taz or Brock or pick-your-favorite-worked-shooter-here. They used plenty of strikes, but focused more heavily on submissions and suplexes and whatnot. I dislike martial arts gimmicks, but for some reason they were successful in the UK. Kung Fu had a long and successful career doing a martial arts gimmick. Clive Myers spent a large chunk of his career doing a similar gimmick, and there were other acts like Sammy Lee and Chris Adams that were successful. Kendo Nagasaki worked a quasi-martial arts gimmick and there were numerous guys who played up their judo background even if they didn't necessarily wear a gi or wrestle barefoot.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 35 John Elijah vs. Prince Mann Singh (10/26/88) John Elijah was such a stalwart, appearing on ITV right up until the end. Here he was on the undercard to Big Daddy's farewell appearance giving us one last no-frills heavyweight power contest. Elijah wasn't the type of wrestler that has great matches, but I enjoyed each and every one of his television appearances. A great wrestling man. I did get kind of tired of Walton reminding us each and every time that his hobby was paleontology, though. That and Elijah's bear story were two of the most singularly repetitive Walton anecdotes. Pat Roach vs. Colonel Brody (3/19/88) Older Pat Roach had a hard time moving about, but I was surprised by how much better this was than the Steele bouts. In fairness to Steele, they were wrestling in Birmingham where Roach was, of course, a beloved son, but Roach was a better seller than Steele and his bouts generally had more drama to them, as you might expect from a wrestler turned actor. Roach made Brody look aggressive here, which was quite the feat. Tony St. Clair vs. Greg "The Hammer" Valentine (Germany, taped 1992) Imagine my surprise when this turned out to be Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and not Crabtree's son. I don't know how good this was technically, but I'm such a mark for the Hammer I loved every second of it. The finish sucked, but the Hammer! Bearcat Wright vs. Ian McGregor (6/5/85) Just the finish. They were trying to turn Bearcat Wright face as Walton kept referring to him as "Bernie" Wright (after telling us he was Canadian all those other times.) Wright refused to accept the decision when McGregor was injured on the outside; the ol' blue eye classic. Seemed like a waste of time repacking Wright only to turn him face. Danny Boy Collins/Greg Valentine vs. Sid Cooper/Black Jack Mulligan (6/5/85) Mulligan and Cooper, what a team! I normally dislike young athletic teams but something about Collins and Valentine clicks for me. Mulligan was such a pro. He was fantastic in this as he always was. Some of the double team spots in this were a bit off, but that was a small blight on what was a genuinely exciting contest and a great showcase for the young guys Dale Martin were trying to get over. Greg Valentine really wasn't that bad a worker despite his privileges.

btw, is this match online? Not finding out for yourself what's going on in a match is laaaazy.

The lucha you watched was mostly from AAA. AAA looked to up the tempo and workrate of its matches in what I think was a fairly deliberate attempt to distinguish itself from the more stodgy and traditional CMLL. It did big business in its first few years and got plenty of coverage in the Observer. When older Wrestling Classics posts talk about lucha, they're really talking about that period of AAA and how it compared with juniors wrestling and the WCW cruiserweight division. It's easy to see why negative attitudes existed toward lucha. It's strange looking compared to juniors wrestling. The impression I get is that most people expected to see a juniors match transposed into a different setting and were confused by what they saw. Even Parv is warmer to the luchadores who traveled to Japan and incorporated some of that juniors influence into their work like Casas and Wagner. But AAA is one promotion, and the mid-90s is an isolated period from that company's history. Even at the time, there were differences between what the young generation were doing and what the older UWA and EMLL workers brought to the table (a lot of which wasn't pimped at the time because lucha brawling was viewed as poor.) I agree with elliot that it's not really fair to single out a Rey Mysterio Jr trios as "lucha." It would be like watching a Great Sasuke match and broadly calling that "Japanese wrestling" when in reality both countries' wrestling is multi-faceted. But to put it in a nutshell, no the matches you watched don't have great psychology. And yes, lucha has psychology. But it's not like All Japan or the NWA touring champ style, and I can't imagine any true fan who would want it to be.

I downloaded as much Nishimura as I could, and while I can understand Ditch being excited for another Nishimura/Saito match, a match that was clipped in half and took place in New Japan and not Muga is not really a big addition to the man's oeuvre.