ohtani's jacket

I think I've come around on everyone I used to hate except for maybe John Naylor. THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 33 Colonel Brody vs. Ray Steele (7/22/87) Y'know, it's like of hard to believe Brody is a South African military colonel when he cuts a promo with a Northerner's accent. Brody was an extremely limited worker who barely sought controversy with his gimmick, but Steele being such a straight shooter tried to keep this one true and work your standard British heavyweight contest. Needless to say, Brody couldn't really keep up, certainly not to the extent of Pat Roach or Gil Singh. The defining moment in the match came when ref was trying to fix the turnbuckle padding and Steele was posted into him. He fell backwards into Steele's arms like a damsel in distress then popped up as though nothing had happened and DQ'ed like Hebner style. Immediately afterward he collapsed and had to be carted out while Steele wandered about the ring in astonishment. Suffice to say, if ref bumps aren't part of your wrestling culture then your refs won't be good at them. You could have almost interpreted it as heel ref shtick due to the poor theatrics. Colonel Brody vs. Ray Steele (8/19/87) This was a special 10 minute return bout that could only be won on a knockout. Walton gave away the finish by reminding viewers that countouts were also a form of knockout, so naturally Brody took a spill to the outside and that was that. Shitty return match. Battle Royal (3/25/87) This was a super heavyweight Battle Royal with Giant Haystacks, Scrubber Daly, King Kendo, Pat Roach, Colonel Brody, King Kong Kirk, Tarzan Johnny Wilson, and little Terry Rudge all occupying the same tiny ring. It was horribly worked, but there was a whole lotta beef in there. Dave Lawrence vs. Saxon Brooks (11/3/82) This was surprisingly good. Brooks was a judoka who never really went anywhere and was still quite green at this point, but his judo moves looked really cool especially against a lighter man, and Lawrence looked like a real little dynamo but only appeared on TV a handful of times. Fun bout.

Steve Grey vs. Ritchie Brooks (6/11/86) This was the bout where Brooks upset Grey to earn a shot at his British Lightweight Championship. Only the scoring action was shown and it was a bit of a disappointment really. Brooks' upset was nothing special, especially compared to some of the other WoS boilovers. The crowd weren't in sync with it and no-one seemed to particularly care, which suggests the workers' timing was off. One of the few times I've been disappointed in a Grey bout (or clip, I should say), but he made up for it with an outstanding title defence.

I also remember liking the Vader match. The Owen matches are good, and I even remember some decent stuff around the time he was IC level feuding with Val Venis and the like. In fact, I don't remember him really being bad. His career just stalled after Michaels buried him.

Do you really think Steve Williams had something left in the WWF that would have added to his career? Something outside of some Al Issacs fueled rumour about him being Vince's corporate champ and the latest in a long line of guy meant to be brought in to feud with Austin. Nobody cared about del Rio let alone his finisher. A gimmick isn't relevant to how good a pro-wrestler is? You're not high on any wrestler because of how well they played their gimmick? If Sakuraba's MMA career isn't relevant to his NJPW run then how come he has a quasi-shooter gimmick and keeps getting put in quasi-shoot style feuds? It doesn't mean a great deal to me how conscious people are of it, but if Shibata has a shooter gimmick then Sakuraba's past has to be just a tiny weeny bit relevant. You don't think Angle had a weight of expectation on him because he was an Olympic gold medalist? People didn't want him to be an outstanding pro-wrestler because of his amateur credentials? Really? They didn't think he'd be like Brisco, Hodge, etc? My point really is that it would be something I would be mindful of. For example, Angle's matwork is disappointing to me since he was a legitimately great amateur. It's in small details like that where it matters. Now that I think about it, I actually think it's bullshit for me to think that such and such a luchador trained under Diablo Velasco and therefore he's legit, or this guy trained under Karl Gotch, or this guy under Riley, and therefore they're well schooled and yet MMA doesn't count. I don't think it's the be all and end all, but it's part of the parcel.

I don't mean to single Parv out, but this, to me, was the attitude of a lot of people who got into AJPW in the early 00s prior to the GWE voting in 2006. I know MJH has made the argument many times that there were clear heel/face roles, but that it in itself illustrates the fact it as a talking point. I think evil prevailing over good in the '96 RWTL is a big call. Kawada and Taue may have done things to Misawa and Akiyama that were disrespectful and downright nasty, but evil? Anyway, on my last major viewing of All Japan, Misawa was the best of the lot. His selling was sublime and the way he'd manage the superiority of the ace coupled with extreme vulnerably when he was nearly beaten showed far great range than the other roles on display.

Because shoot style workers were trying to do something just a little bit different from standard pro-wrestling. I don't give two shits that Brock was a WWE wrestler who fought some MMA fights and returned to WWE, but I do think Koshinaka and Tamura's shoot fights are interesting along with Funaki, Sakuraba and even a guy like Minoru Suzuki, although in his case he has a later period pro-style career that's arguably stronger than all but Tamura's worked shoot career. In any event, I only ever presented it as something I would keep in mind and that was in reaction to Dylan's question.

On one hand, I've got people telling me that careers are just as important as how good a worker a guy was, and on the other I've got someone telling me career narratives don't exist. Steve Williams and Alberto Del Rio didn't have significant MMA careers. Why are you trying to pretend they did? Anyone who thinks Sakuraba's present NJPW work isn't shaped by his PRIDE run is kidding themselves .Apparently, he had a big pause in his pro-wrestling career and the PRIDE/MMA stuff never happened. Give me a break. I don't really have any interest in a long, drawn out argument about what MMA was in Japan in relation to pro-wrestling since it barely exists anymore in the same way that shoot style barely exists, but I believe my original point was it was something I would keep in mind in regard to candidates such as Sakuraba. Funaki and Tamura if I were to vote, which I'm not. Others can draw a line in the sand if they like.

If there was a single person on the face of the earth who thought his pro-wrestling career was good.

Not all of Finlay's WoS work is bad. The first three years or so are amazing. Before he adopted the whole green and white shamrock look with the mullet and moustache, he was a phenomenal worker and I'd argue his tag team with Skull Murphy is good enough that he'd make a list of unexpectedly great tag wrestlers. When WoS is cancelled and wrestling becomes a stand alone show, and Finlay starts doing dates with both All-Star and Joint Promotions with Paula in his corner, that's when the quality drops off.

Grappling, shooting, you can use whatever verb you think fits best. The Shamrock shoot is more similar to Tamura's longer works than it is dissimilar. There's an interesting compare and contrast that can be made with the Kohsaka work. I would recommend anyone looking to get into Tamura to watch the Tamura shoot. It's not like anyone's going to vote for him because of the Shamrock fight. But it's more meaningful to what Tamura was about than watching him face Vader.

I probably wouldn't vote for Sakuraba, but if I did I would compare his MMA career to his early UWF-I and Kingdom work as well as his later New Japan return. I wouldn't vote for him solely on the basis that I think his PRIDE fights were great up until the Silva massacres, but I do think his MMA career informs his pro-style work. It's hard for me to watch his early shoot style stuff and not think of the what he accomplished in MMA, and likewise it's hard to watch his present day matches without thinking of the beatings he took in his later MMA fights. It's all part of his career narrative and the fact you should ignore it or dismiss it because a shoot style wrestler went one step further and had a shoot is something I'll never fathom.

I'm sure there was an element of digging the cool heels, but when you find a heel worker so sympathetic that you watch matches from their POV that is not standard pro-wrestling storytelling. Maybe heel fans do it all the time, but I can't remember seeing it when people discuss US wrestling, for example. Have you ever seen anybody talk about Tully vs. Magnum from the POV of Tully, or Dibiase vs. Duggan from the POV of Ted? It doesn't seem to happen.

It's awesome, but it's not a pro-wrestling match. Doesn't bother me. It gives some insight into how good a grappler he truly was and you can also use it to judge how good/realistic his worked shoots were.

People always knew Kawada was the heel from 5/93 on. We talked about it all the time online, that Misawa and Kobashi and Jun were the faces, and that Kawada and Taue were the heels. Knowing he's the heel and viewing him as one are two different things. Kawada was an internet darling the same way Benoit was. People watched the big AJPW matches from his POV. They didn't (at least in my experience) watch the matches from the POV of Misawa, or Misawa and Kobashi, overcoming the dastardly heels. It was viewed more along the lines of a sporting rivalry such as Borg/McEnroe, Sampras/Agassi, or what have you, and I stress ]i]what have you]/i] as I don't want to go round and round in circles about analogies. One of the talking points about AJPW used to be whether the heel/face roles were the same as in US wrestling. MJH argued many times in the past that there were clearly defined heel/face roles. Others didn't see that as they were caught up in the chase narrative. That's the way I remember it. I may be wrong, but I think there's a history of internet fans not really viewing Japanese workers as heels but rather as favourites whether it's Akira Hokuto, Mayumi Ozaki, Genichiro Tenryu or indeed Toshiaki Kawada. All of those workers were heroes to online fans and whatever heel/face dynamic there was in Japan or in the matches was meaningless.

I would take the famous Funaki/Rutten match into account if I were voting. I'd also have Tamura's shoot with Frank Shamrock in mind if I were voting for Tamura. I wouldn't vote for Sakuraba, but if I did I would take his PRIDE matches into account.

The career thing should make ranking wrestlers a piece of cake. If I want to vote for: Adrian Adonis Adrian Street AJ Styles Aja Kong Alan Sarjeant then it's obvious that I would rank them in this order: Aja Kong AJ Styles Adrian Adonis Adrian Street Alan Sarjeant The only interesting thing about careers is when people form an argument about them -- eg. this guy's career is overrated, this guy's is underrated, here's an unexplored part of so and so's career. Otherwise it's just towing the line and that's boring.

I think the appeal of Casas is that he was an outrageous, flamboyant character who walked the thinnest of lines between being legitimately tough and effeminate as hell. It's not spoken about much, but Casas is about as close to an exotico worker as you can get without being an exotico and for that type of wrestler to come in and completely rule Arena Mexico is a testament to his genius. Probably the most impressive thing about Casas is the way he waltzed into Arena Mexico in 1992 and took head of place at the cathedral. It was brash and audacious and something few others could have done. Satanico is more of a wrestler's wrestler. He has a better build for wrestling (bigger neck and shoulders), better grappling technique, more knowledgeable wrestling skill, and just a more solid worker all-round. He was better on the mat than Casas and had better offence. Casas is an excellent worker, but his mechanics have never been as good as others. What sets him apart is his showmanship. No matter how brilliant Satanico might be, there's no way he could match Casas for flair. In fact, I'd almost draw a parallel between Satanico the genius guitarist and Casas the flamboyant front man. That's not to say that Satanico doesn't have charisma of his own. He certainly does, but it's based on him being an excellent wrestler and not because of how extroverted he is. I think their great matches cancel each other out to a certain degree. Satanico has the Cochisse match and Casas has the Dandy match. Satanico has the Dandy feud and Casas has the Satanico feud. Satanico has the Morgan hair match and Casas has the Fiera match. One advantage Satanico has is that he was part of an all-time great trios team in Los Infernales whereas Casas' best trios work was in the lead-up to singles matches. Casas probably has longevity on his side even if I'm not a huge fan of his work post 1999. I always favoured Satanico in the past, but my respect for Casas is ever growing. It's a tough call. The way I would decide it is this -- if you offered me Satanico's entire match output or Casas' which would I take? The answer is Satanico's.

I'm sure there were people who were sympathetic towards Kawada for the simple reason that they liked him or they wanted to see him overcome Misawa. After all, a huge part of the Japanese psyche is in appreciating the fight in the underdog or the guy who is hopelessly outmatched. But at no point do I think people thought Misawa was a dick the way people dislike Man United, the Lakers, Duke or the Giants in Japan. The audience that went nuts for Misawa upsetting the apple cart against Jumbo didn't suddenly turn on him because he had a rival in the form of Kawada. Misawa may have been a dick at points. From all accounts, he didn't really like Kawada, but the narrative that was spun around Kawada when I first got into Japanese wrestling was that his feud against Misawa was a chase and I don't think that's quite true.

Agreed. Talent in practice matters more than just having the talent. But whether they realize it or not, everyone has already agreed to that in terms of how they are ranking guys anyway. Everyone in the top 100 is bound to have talent. Talent in practice for the majority of people relates to matches and performances and not careers.

If they think he's one of the 10 best workers they should since it's not like his career was bad.

But when we watch guys we're judging them primarily on No.1. You might watch a match and think about where it fits into the context of a guy's career, but first and foremost you're judging the bout on the work. When I watch Jumbo work a boring control segment, I don't think "wow, what an amazing two decades the guy had." Similarly, if I watch an outstanding Kawada performance, I don't think "I wish we had more of this over a longer period." It seems to me that as you go through the Excite Series that there's something about Kawada's work that doesn't resonate with you as opposed to the career argument. The career thing is so arbitrary to me. The peak vs. longevity argument has always been a part of these debates, but ranking the guy with the better career seems pointless. How do you determine whether Flair or Jumbo had a better career than El Hijo del Santo or Liger? You place a huge emphasis on output as well as variety of opposition, but lucha guys ran laps around the number of guys Flair and Jumbo faced and other workers like Liger have the same amount of longevity. I'm not knocking you for holding Flair and Jumbo up as your standard. But how do you correlate that with Breaks where we don't really know how many four star matches he produced with how many different opponents? The way I see it is that relatively speaking Kawada didn't have that bad a career compared to Jumbo, so the question is how do they compare as workers not is there a guy who faced more deadset legends over a decade span as Jumbo while still working the Sam Houstons of the world.

There are many things that British wrestling did badly, but this has to take the cake. Watch this from the 18 min mark onward and tell me if you've seen anything worse;

I can't remember anyone who was super into Kawada viewing him as a heel. Akira Hokuto, who was technically a heel, had a similar fanbase built up around her.

I don't think that people who were super into Kawada in say 2001, which was really the lead up to the first GWE poll, saw him as a heel. His narrative was always that he was a bit of a hard luck kid. The entire narative surrounding Kawada when I first became aware of him was here is the match where he finally pinned Misawa and here is the match where he beat him to win the Tag League, etc. And to an extent, Baba did book it that way. But never to the point where his ace looked like a douche.

Surely, the most relevant point about Flair and Jumbo at this point is that there are 98 other spaces on the ballot.