ohtani's jacket

There's not much footage of Wright. There's a few matches of his from the early 70s where he was doing a wonderboy gimmick similar to early Alex Wright. He ended up working in Germany and Austria pretty much full time and unfortunately most of the German footage we have is either clipped or difficult to watch. There isn't a single match of his from Germany/Austria that I would consider worth watching. In 1986 he had a match against Marty Jones on ITV that's one of the best matches of the 80s. He works that match as a fake German, Bull Blitzer. IIRC, there's talk of a re-match at the end, but it never happened. Regal has said in the past that he ate guys alive and people were scared to work with him. I personally find him overrated. He's one of those guys like Saint who people are vaguely aware of and think is some great Euro worker despite the lack of footage to substantiate that idea. I'm sure there were nights when he was great, but we don't have the footage to support that.

El Dandy vs. Bestia Salvaje, CMLL World Middleweight Championship, CMLL 9/4/92 Recently, I've only heard negative things about this bout, but it's really not that bad. It's not as good as it could have been; I'll throw that out there right now, but it's not terrible. Would it have been better as an apuesta match on the 1992 Anniversary show? Probably. Is it one of the the better title matches from the 90s? Nope. But is it one of the 90s' biggest disappointments? Not really. They forwent a traditional build and worked at an almost workrate-y pace, but I appreciated the athleticism and competitiveness of the opening fall, and I thought Bestia's pinning maneuver was cool even if Rangel treated it as a submission. The second fall was a straight-up response from Dandy. It didn't have the overlap that you typically find in a lucha match where the winner of the first fall keeps dominating until the loser seizes an opportunity, but Dandy wasn't about to be trifled with, and I appreciated the step-up in intensity. Probably the most glaring aspect of the match was the lengthy leg-lock they worked in the tercera caida that Dandy blew off to hit a tope. You don't usually see a submission last that long in lucha, and Bestia even had the good sense to sell the effects on his own legs when he finally released it. Dandy's selling was excellent while he was in the hold, but he was moving freely the rest of the way, which is unusual for a seller of Dandy's calibre. What was also strange about the leg lock was that it came during a caida where they'd gone for a straight back and forward; and while they hadn't transitioned into it well, they were at least keeping count with the right number of beats. The leg-lock gobbled up a fair number of beats, and so when Satanico grabbed Dandy's leg on a superplex to cause Bestia to fall on top, it didn't feel like the climax. Satanico's seconding was pretty cool in this bout, but I don't think it should have been the focal point and would have felt doubly so if I'd gone back and watched the build. Still, even with the bullshit finish I couldn't bring myself to hate the match. Perhaps if I'd watched it a few months ago and was expecting an all-time classic I would have ripped into it, but looking at the history of this belt after the bout, it seemed to get buried on Coliseo shows and wasn't given the respect that a great bout would have demanded. There were plenty of reasons to dislike the bout. The fact that it was the first show back at Arena Mexico after a nine week absence suggests it should have been a barn burner, but to me it was booked like one of those matches where the favourite comes unstuck on the eve of an important apuesta match casting doubt on whether he can regroup in time. That again made Bestia second fiddle to Satanico, but at least he got a title out of it. It's a three star match that should have been four, but it surprised me how much I didn't hate it. Perhaps this is the beginning of indifference.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. AJ Styles (8/14/15) * This was really good. * Quite a traditional base to start with. Of course, better workers have done it better, but at least it was traditional looking. It kind of reminded me of the way Shawn Michaels liked to start a bout except it was better than a token Michaels beginning. * I liked the way the match escalated w/ Tanahashi being worldly enough to know that two fingers in the face will piss off any gaijin opponent. I liked the way they handled Tanahashi being initially in control and then Styles taking over. Walton would probably comment that they send each other a telegram at times, or write each other a letter, but dramatic pauses and stagger selling are par for the course in this style. * It was notable to me that Tanahashi didn't do a lot of his signature stuff during the body. It wasn't until near the 26 minute mark of a 28 minute file that he did a signature Tanahashi move. That was a welcome relief from dragon screw leg whips, cross body blocks, sling blades and high fly flows. * Is it just me or is AJ Styles a superior version of what CM Punk tried to be in the WWE? * The double low blow spot was weird. In true Japanese fashion they sold it about as realistically as a double low blow spot can be sold in professional wrestling and it was awfully weird. * Finally, the director and camera crew figured out it's better if you shoot the forearm strikes from behind the wrestlers instead of side on. Kudos to them for that. * That Styles submission where he was wrenching on the leg while Tanahashi desperately pulled on the ref's shirt was brilliantly done. * The finishing stretch was the worst part of the match. I didn't mind them using their finishers on each other, but the pair of them popping up and sprinting through a bunch of shit was a weak end to a strong bout. For that reason, I'd go **** on a beginning and middle that were probably stronger than that.

Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. The Great Kabuki & Mighty Inoue (2/21/90) This was pretty good, but in more of a "I can't believe these workers had a match this good" kind of a way as opposed to a "wow, here's a match from 1990 that nobody ever talks about" kind of way. Tenryu indeed brought a type of proto-WAR stiffness and attitude to the bout, particularly the way he smacked Kabuki about, but I thought the stuff involving Kawada was a bit rubbish. He was going through this gawky growth "spurt" as he transitioned from a lightweight into a heavyweight and it almost felt like his wrestling adolescence. He was too chunky to play the young ring boy any longer and was almost the same size as Inoue, so I didn't really buy this toothless, rat tailed heavy being the whipping boy he'd played so effectively from '88 to '89. Tenryu kicked enough arse to make up for that but even then his asskicking felt like proto-punk compared to his punk WAR days. Not bad, though.

Wait, what? That's kinda weird. Their only regular foreign coverage is a twenty-years-ago nostalgia column? Huh. Wonder what the thought process is about that. Actually, I went through all of them and found that most issues had a 2-6 page colour spread covering events from RAW and Smackdown, and the PPVs instead in the weeks they occurred. The amusing thing is that it says "thanks to WWE and Mr. Vince K. McMahon." TNA gets a bit of coverage for their PPVs. Mostly copious pictures of Sting. The 1996 stuff is a one page column called "New York, New York" that covers WWE history presumably. It touched on Nitro due to the Monday Night Wars and extended through to '97 and '98 in the issues I have. I was kind of surprised when I opened up the first one and there was a picture of Sid raising the belt. Another odd pic was an odd for a shop that use a poster of Demolition Axe. There actually seemed to be an interview with Eadie in one of the issues.

The thing is: every single thing you're listing, from the lack of legally-available tapes to the lack of foreign wrestling on television to the language barrier to being in a bubble: all that stuff applies just as well to American wrestlers watching Japanese stuff. Yet clearly they managed to do exactly that, a lot. "Watching Japanese tapes" was the most popular thing for young wrestlers in the late 90s to do together. Why would it work so differently in the other direction? Because Japan didn't have dirt sheets. Instead, there were weekly magazines and coverage in the sports tabloids. And there wasn't a taping trading culture. People were wary of the legal aspects of it, and it was really only collectors who participated in it. And as I said, young wrestlers typically dormed together and followed a fairly rigorous regime. In the tape trading era, Japanese workers were always surprised that foreigners had seen their matches because tape trading wasn't a thing in Japan, and Japanese people in general always assume nobody knows a thing about Japanese entertainment outside of Japan. I always had the impression that Weekly Pro and Gong were MUCH bigger deals in Japan than PWI or any similar publications here. Is that correct? They definitely featured American wrestling at a level not even remotely comparable to how puro is/was covered stateside. The magazines seem really impressive at first because they're at every kiosk and every convenience store and bookshop. The only time I can remember that happening overseas was when I was a kid and every bookshop carried the official WWF magazine along with all the Apter titles, and our local version of the TV guide, and one and only tabloid paper, carrying weekly wrestling inserts. Then you start to realis there's a million different magazines published in Japan about a million different subjects. The wrestling mags do have good distribution, though, even now. They're still visible at most kiosks and convenience stores. God knows who buys them. It's the newspaper coverage that is far less prestigious than we were led to believe when we heard that pro-wrestling was covered in the newspapers in Japan. Tokyo Sports is pretty trashy and Nikkan Sports isn't much better. I have a stack of Weekly Pro Wrestling mags from 2009. That's well past the peak of Japanese wrestling mags, but I had a look through them and there wasn't much in the way of overseas coverage. There was a regular two page column about the US wrestling scene in 1996, weekly coverage about the goings on in Mexico, some historic pictures of Showa era stars and a bit of WWE news here and there. There was a four page spread for an upcoming WWE tour with profiles of the WWE wrestlers, but no real recaps of what was going on in ROH, WWE or TNA.

Huh. Okay. I've never heard that before, but I guess you'd be the one here who'd know. I just assumed that any country with a booming wrestling business would come equipped with an equally booming subculture along the line of our own tape traders and sheet readers. So, I guess they fit the original topic of the thread REALLY well, being in a bubble that kept them even more isolated than happens to wrestlers in America.. There was a subculture. Tokyo is a place that has wrestling memorabilia stores and wrestling themed restaurants after all. There were fan clubs that produced newsletters, and certainly hardcore collectors who hoarded over large private collections. The original JWP sold videos of its shows through mail order, so there was definitely a fan culture there. There was even fetish stuff out there. But there really wasn't anyone out there like Jeff Lynch, or the earliest Internet guys who sold his stuff. If you were a fan of an American worker such as Brody, you went to the shows, watched him on TV and read Japanese books and magazines about him. Only the most hardcore of fans would have sort out his overseas work. A lot of people just like to go to the shows as well, and don't participate in the fan culture. I don't think you can overestimate the effect of the language barrier as well as the bubble that many Japanese people live in. Which isn't to say that there was no interest in overseas wrestling as there were VHS tapes available for sale and rent and a weekly TV show with clipped foreign wrestling, but it was all dubbed over or translated and made easier for consumption. From our perspective tape trading was the only way to see Japanese wrestlers, but Japanese fans had constant exposure to touring Americans in a more accessible form for them. But the big difference is in terms of Japanese fans or wrestlers knowing about American workers outside of the top stars who visited Japan. I would be extremely surprised if the average hardcore knew who Brian Pillman was or Sean Waltman or Too Cold Scorpio the way we knew who Kiyoshi Tamura or Jun Akiyama were. That would really surprise me. I've met hardcore Japsnese fans who could rattle off just about any foreigner who toured Japan, but that was really where their knowledge was concentrated. It's cool as shit talking with Japanese rock musicians about Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch, but they're not gonna know a ton about Bill Dundee. Buddy Rose or Tracy Smothers. To be fair, the same is true for a lot of old time fans on the Internet who don't watch Japanese wrestling and maybe only know a handful of names. In that sense, the exposure among Japanese fans to American wrestlers is probably higher in general. I just think there was little exposure to ECW.

The thing is: every single thing you're listing, from the lack of legally-available tapes to the lack of foreign wrestling on television to the language barrier to being in a bubble: all that stuff applies just as well to American wrestlers watching Japanese stuff. Yet clearly they managed to do exactly that, a lot. "Watching Japanese tapes" was the most popular thing for young wrestlers in the late 90s to do together. Why would it work so differently in the other direction? Because Japan didn't have dirt sheets. Instead, there were weekly magazines and coverage in the sports tabloids. And there wasn't a taping trading culture. People were wary of the legal aspects of it, and it was really only collectors who participated in it. And as I said, young wrestlers typically dormed together and followed a fairly rigorous regime. In the tape trading era, Japanese workers were always surprised that foreigners had seen their matches because tape trading wasn't a thing in Japan, and Japanese people in general always assume nobody knows a thing about Japanese entertainment outside of Japan.

I'm sorry Jingus, but the idea of Jaquar Yokota watching an ECW tape is preposterous. I doubt she knew everything that was going on in the Japanese scene let alone the States. i dunno how you'd go about getting an ECW tape at the time. Maybe rent one from Champion. Can't see that happening. I don't think Nitro was ever on Japanese TV. WWE has been on satellite since I moved here, but I don't know about the 90s. I'd venture to say the majority of Japanese wrestlers exposure to American wrestlers was through Americans wrestling in Japan. There may be some exposure through magazines, but even then the women were probably more interested in Lady's Gong. The language barrier makes reading the Observer impossible. The magazine writers were probably more in tune with what was happening in the States. Don't forget, Joshi girls lived in a bubble of training, dorming, training, dorming, wrestling, training, dorming. When everyone was watching wrestling on terrestrial TV, they were out traveling and performing.

What about Savage and Hogan?

When I was a kid just about everyone in the midcard had a foreign object, along with most of the managers. There were even live animals. It was as though Vince was looking to make money in toy accessories, but they swerved another purpose in that week after week kids like me watched Superstars to see Dibiase stick a hundred dollar bill down some jobber's throat or Beefcake give someone a haircut. And then there was always the anticipation of what would happen if they came against one of the main guys on the roster. Vince liked to use the intercontinental title as a stepping stone for the World title. He also liked injury angles and having long time friends or partners fall out with each other. One thing he was really good at were the turns, which were almost always memorable. And he was generally pretty good at repackaging the guy who'd turned heel. I hated the way he phased out each vanquished Hogan opponent, but a few of them rebounded okay like Savage, Andre and Piper. How about trying to rub shoulders with musicians, Hollywood actors and sports stars? He tried that a fair bit in the early Wrestlemanias. A bit of glamour to differentiate themselves from the rest of wrestling. Hogan constantly being portrayed as the best athlete in sports. A fair bit of jingoistic, red white and blue storytelling to go along with his right wing politics. Original theme music, colorful outfits, and recognisable looks for everyone with only slight variations in the tights or trunks people wore. Strong emphasis on finishers. Sleeper holds where the victim raises their hand the third time. Heels in peril tag structure. Escape rules cage matches.

How in the hell would Jaguar Yokota know who the Sandman was? Do you really think Yokota in the midst of training all of the late 80s/early 90s girls, making her comeback and starting her own promotion, had any idea what was happening in the US? There is zero chance that Yokota knew who the Sandman was for the simple reason that there was zero chance that the majority of workers outside the Michinoku Pro guys knew who he was

1995 WWF was the worst. I swear if Bret hadn't beaten Diesel at Survivor Series I wouldn't be watching wrestling today. The two biggest mark out moments of my life were Bret winning at Survivor Series and Rey beating Eddy at Halloween Havoc '97. The first was pre-internet connection for me and the second was based on intermittent access to the internet and some Al Issacs type info about Rey losing his mask. 1995 WCW didn't offer much when we did the Smarkschoice poll, especially with Pillman vs. Badd disappointing. Dylan discovered a good Vader tag with the Patriot, though. I was watching Worldwide at the time, so I wasn't as invested in the shittiness as I was with WWF.

It would take a ton of research to come up with a theory as to why New Japan was more popular than All Japan. I do know that Inoki got some huge television ratings for his worked shoots in the 70s and then New Japan had that hot run on Friday nights with Tiger Mask and Choshu vs. Fujinami in a far better time slot than All Japan ever had. New Japan seemed to have a better deal with Asahi than All Japan had with NTV, which may have been crucial. but whether that was because Inoki was better in the boardroom than Baba is something we don't know a lot about. Given Inoki's rap sheet, you'd have to assume he was better at bullshitting his way through boardroom meetings than Baba, but Baba may have been a shrewd customer himself. No prizes for guessing who blew through their money and who had a reputation for being stingy.

North American tournaments are overwhelmingly disappointing and almost never good, whereas Japanese tournaments are taken seriously and usually produce a handful of great matches if not a MOYTC. I don't think their reputation is unfounded.

Baba typically finished the Angles he started, because frankly he ran very few angles. What Baba didn't do was finish "storylines" that he started. He really didn't think in those terms. Yeah, that was more what I was getting at. But again, it's not like the majority of bookers are any better.

Because I like sports, movies and comic books I guess. Initially, I think it was an offspring of comic books because I got into them around the same time. Wrestlers and super heroes are far more colourful when you're 9 years old.

I'm not sure. It's not something that's been properly explored.

I don't see how you can expect this to be best meeting best when it's not interpromotional.

I enjoy a match every now and again when I think the match was good. I can't understand people who claim to enjoy everything they watch.

I'd just expect to see them later in the match.

The problem I see with that is that New Japan were bigger and made more money than All Japan.

Don't forget that Onita was flat bloke and labouring/doing delivery work to pay the bills until JWP gave him a salesman job. I dunno what it was with FMW, but it's kind of similar to Megumi Kudo working at a kindergarten/daycare between wrestling gigs. Return to civilian life then bleed for everyone's entertainment.

This is silly. In no way, shape or form is English considered "evil" in Japan.

Does that make Jumbo any less, I dunno, Kurt Angle-ish, during that stretch?