ohtani's jacket

They're trying to have as reaistic a pro-wrestling match as possible not as realistic a fight as possible.

They did pair Breaks up with a lot of the newer talent (along with Sid Cooper), but it's accentuated by the footage TWC aired. Breaks had lengthy television feuds with Steve Grey then Young David, Alan Dennison and Danny Boy Collins in the period you've been covering.

Marty Jones vs. Skull Murphy (12/3/82) These two had great working chemistry together. Jones was easily Murphy's best opponent and has single-handedly raised my opinion of him since Murphy seems to add one or two little touches to their bouts that I never notice in his fights against other people. This was on its way to being a great bout when Jones slipped on some water that had been left on the canvas from the previous bout. As far as injury finishes go it was pretty well done as I was in two minds as to whether it was real at first. The ref called it a no contest, which of course Murphy found incredulous. Marty Jones vs. King Kendo (8/8/84) This was Marty against the fake Kendo Nagasaki. The fake was a guy named Bill Clarke who ripped off Nagasaki's gimmick on the independent circuit to the point where he pretended to be him. After considerable legal action from Peter Thornely (Kendo Nagasaki), he ditched the name but kept the look. They then feuded in All-Star Wrestling over the mask. Joint ended up bringing him in I suppose to fill the void left by Nagasaki who was working for Dixon along with Bridges and St. Clair and Quinn. The footage had sound issues so I couldn't follow it very well, but Finlay was in Kendo's corner and the implication seemed to be that he was sending Kendo out there to hurt Jones. Marty Jones vs. Digger Nolan (9/17/85) Nolan was billed as an Australian wrestler from Freemantle. This was a total squash. You know a guy's a jobber when he gets KO'ed by Jones' dropkick. Jones had a great dropkick, but that's rough. Marty Jones vs. Skull Murphy (1/3/85) This was another World Mid-Heavyweight title fight between Jones and Murphy. Murphy wasn't quite as good in '85 as he had been in '83-84, but there was still a lot of quality in this. The only negative I'll say about Skull is that his selling could have been better. He bumped for the big spots, but if his reactions for the little stuff had been better I'd have no qualms calling him a strong worker during this phase of his career. As it was, he was pretty good against the right opponents. Marty Jones vs. Bearcat Bernie Wright (2/12/85) Wright has this weird look in '85 where he shaved the sides of his head. Kind of a proto-Berlyn look, but it wasn't shaved the whole way round. It didn't help his standings very much as they continued to job him out. It's weird the way they treated Wright considering the stable he came out of. Only the finish of this survives, but judging by other Wright matches at the time I can't imagine it being great. Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (6/13/83) All right, a 20 minute workrate tag! That's something you don't get... well, ever... I've been waiting a long time to see a WoS tag match like this where four guys go all out and work a proper tag match. This is what the tag bouts should have been, but aside from that wonderful Johnny Saint bout and the Caribbean Sunshine Boys spectacle weren't. Any time Jones and Finlay square off it's just dynamite. Jones may actually be Finlay's career best opponent. At worst I would rank them alongside any other great pairing of the decade they're that good. This didn't have traditional Southern style structure as the FIP segments were short, but it was continuous hard hitting action and a great spotfest. Finlay's bumping was off the charts. I like him so much better before he shacked up with Paula. Excellent bout that ended with the overused need for a replay, but who's complaining when you get to see this match-up again? Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (8/23/83) This was the replay to decide whatever all important knockout tag contest they were fighting over. This might have been even better than the last bout. Again there wasn't the kind of structure you'd find in a Rock 'n' Roll Express match, but the exchanges were flat out brilliant. Finlay's bumping was even crazier than the first time round and Murphy brought the killer spots like his back elbow guillotine drop off the top turnbuckle. Jones cleaning house was a sight to behold as well. He has got the single best face slap of any wrestler I've seen. The finish was a bit confusing as the tape cut off before we found out how the ref was going to call it, but this was another outstanding tag bout and another overwhelming pleasant surprise.

MORE TRADITIONAL FACE/HEEL DYNAMIC Cena vs Batista - Wrestlemania 26 I was a bit unsure how this fit a more traditional face/heel dynamic as it seemed to be a workrate match, but it was a solid bout and I couldn'rt find much fault with the work. Without seeing the build it's difficult to judge how good the payoff is, but as a stand alone bout it didn't exactly live up to my expectations of a big time fight. The two best Cena matches I've seen are the Umaga fight and the Money in the Bank match. I'd rate those amongst the best WWE matches of all-time. But I haven't seen a lot of evidence so far that Cena is one of the best big match workers ever. The other thing I realised watching this is that I'm just not a fan. His acting is shoddy and when he poses I don't get amped in the way I'm sure his fans do. He strikes me as a good main event worker, but I'm iffy on his greatness thus far. Nevertheless, this was solid. *** 1/2

Off the top of my head... Rey vs Chavo, Smackdown 25th July 2002 (debut) Rey vs Kurt Angle, Summerslam 2002 Rey vs Kurt Angle, Smackdown 12th Sept 2002 Rey vs Chris Benoit, Smackdown 3rd Oct 2002 Rey & Edge vs Angle & Benoit, No Mercy 2002 Rey & Edge vs Angle & Benoit (2/3 Falls), Smackdown 7th Nov 2002 Rey vs Eddie Guerrero, Smackdown 14th Nov 2002 Rey & Edge vs Angle & Benoit vs Los Guerreros, Survivor Series 2002 I finished watching all of Rey's 2002 stuff and enjoyed every single match. Some of it I had seen before and some of it I hadn't. The weakest match was either the Benoit match or the Survivor Series three-way, but they were still solid matches. I love this era of WWE programming. I stopped watching the WWE regularly in 2001 because I wasn't happy with the in-ring product and wasn't following it online in 2002. I would have loved to have watched this era on a week-to-week basis. I love Kurt Angle in these matches, thought Edge was great, and adore the No Mercy tag. Perhaps my all-time favourite spotfest. As for Rey, his selling is good, he works well from underneath, great spots, really awesome set-ups for the 619. Watching this stuff has definitely cemented his place on my list. It's just a matter of how high.

VIDEO GAME-Y BOMB THROWING Cena vs The Rock - Wrestlemania 29 I'd already seen the Cena/Bryan and Cena/Punk matches so I went with this instead. It wasn't a bad match, but it was really flat up until the finishing stretch. It didn't help that the crowd were so subdued or that the commentators kept prattling on about how high the stakes were and how important the match was to both men's legacies while they were in the middle of some boring ass hold. Cena was generally a better worker here than he was in 2007, but the first third was unashamed filler and they started trading finishers earlier than I expected. I liked Rock's counters to the STFU, but everything else was tiresome. The problem was that I didn't really care about Rock beating Cena the year before and the mistake Cena had made in toying with him, so the psychology behind the finishing stretch didn't really interest me. It was noticeable that the crowd were sitting around waiting for it to happen though and that both guys repeatedly hitting their finishers was the only thing that got them up and standing. To me this didn't really match the big match billing, so I'd probably give it ***

It's from New Japan.

Marty Jones vs. Skull Murphy (3/21/83) This was really good. It was Jones' first title defence of the World Mid-Heavyweight title after his win over Bobby Gaetano in November. A title defence against Skull Murphy was never going to be a technical masterpiece so they didn't even bother and worked a straight up heel vs. face match instead. They weren't overt about it, but since Murphy was Finlay's tag partner and Finlay became Jones' perpetual rival after Rocco left, it pretty much tied into the ongoing storyline. Jones always played the gobsmacked, earnest sportsman who would never accept a decision he felt he didn't deserve, but he was equally short tempered and while he would do all that cocky cat and mouse stuff with lesser opponents, he'd fire up if he didn't like the way he was being treated. When Murphy wasn't out and out cheating here, he would be be niggling Jones. His favourite trick was to rub his bald forehead against Jones' and throw the occasional headbutt or shove his palm right in Jones' face while stretching him in a submission. Jones eventually lost his cool, the crowd gave Ward an earful over everything Murphy did real or imagined, and the whole thing simmered nicely until Jones was busted open and the stakes suddenly rose tenfold. I'm not sure how Jones got away with blading on TV, but this almost certainly how their matches most have played out in the halls. They even did a spot that looked like he was straight from the houseshows where Jones goaded Murphy into punching him in the jaw and Murphy punched the ringpost instead. The blood soaked Jones was actually up a fall during his big peril segment, but it looked for all money like Murphy would make him submit. The finish was a bit of a let down given the heights the match had reached, but this was still a heck of a spectacle and one that has vaulted my already high opinion of Jones as a worker. Marty Jones vs. Studs Lannigan (8/21/84) What a great little bout this was. It only went about three rounds and was another Jones vs. lesser guy match, but for whatever reason Marty gave Lannigan a lot more respect than some of his other opponents. Instead of toying with him, Jones brought his mat game to the bout, which is an aspect of his game he often shelves, and they worked a bunch of cool holds. Lannigan was also given a fall to the great surprise of many. The crowd booed him so he gave them the finger twice. On UK television no less. Studs enjoyed that. That woke Jones up and he annihilated Lannigan like the British Bulldogs beating up on some jobbers. Studs ate the missile dropkick beautifully. I've seen him once before, but I don't remember him being quite this good. This was a bad ass squash. Studs ruled.

The Paula thing goes way back to early in Orndorff's career. There was an angle in the WWF where he destroyed a jobber who wore a Paula t-shirt.

Why was he on tv so little then?

Was that Kung Fu bout from Joint Promotions or All-Star? I thought Breaks only worked for All-Star and Reslo after '84 but from your description it sounds like a Joint bout. There's a Breaks match from '87 against a guy called Jack Davey in Reslo.

Btw, Magnum I wanted to say how nice it is to see another guy watching and critiquing WoS. It's been fantastic so far.

Saint and Faulkner had an excellent bout in the early 80s that made it on to my list of recommended matches. That '78 bout I remember being a disappointment by comparison. Saint often worked an exhibition type style and Faulkner was a guy who had his own bag of tricks. It's not a surprise that they'd just riff off each other. Faulkner was on TV a bunch, though. Third only to Breaks and McManus if I'm not mistaken. He's not one of my absolute favourites, but I've seen him in just about every match situation under the sun. In that respect these exhibition type showcase are a sign of versatility.

I'd have to check, but I don't think he was on TV that regularly. He seems to be a guy who a lot of people have memories of seeing live.

I've never bothered to watch Tanahashi vs. a bad opponent since I really just cherry pick his stuff, but I wasn't judging it on any sort of Tanahashi scale. I was judging it as a pro-wrestling match and it wasn't very good. I just checked and Dave gave it * 3/4

I see. That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. SELLING FOR MONSTERS Cena vs Great Khali - Judgment Day 2007 This was the first match that I thought was actively bad. I wasn't expecting much from Khali who's a horrendously bad pro-wrestler, but Cena's punches and the moves he did to try to knock Khali down were appalling bad. Cena's selling was passable I guess, but he was never in any serious trouble, the jeopardy didn't match the stakes, and after all the hype that Khali had never been pinned or submitted, he lost in incredibly weak fashion. Surely, Cena could have gone to greater lengths to beat him. This wasn't even passable for a RAW match. About a *

They're chanting because they think they're part of the show. It used to be that you went to wrestling to watch the show. Now you go there to interact with it. I can't blame the audience entirely since they've been directly addressing the fans for decades now with their 20 minute opening monologues.

It is the same thing in that you claim to be caught up in this amazing moment, yet you are still detached enough to post on Facebook or chant about the quality of a match. Or it could mean you're having a great time and want to take a picture of you and your friends and put it on Facebook or write some short one line message. It's pretty innocuous as opposed to the chanting which is obnoxious.

Dave Finlay vs. Roy Scott (4/23/85) This was supposed to be Finlay vs. Scott McGhee, which would have been a much better bout, but I guess McGhee had left the country or failed to make it to Watford for some reason. Roy Scott is a name that means nothing to me. To be honest, the Crabtrees rolled out a whole host of no-names in the later years as talent began to thin out. They even brought back really old wrestlers, which I thought was a big mistake in light of the competing products. Walton mentioned this was Scott's second time on TV and he actually got four rounds with Finlay here, which seems like a lot, but then Dave liked to methodically wear down an opponent. Another Princess Paula/Finlay showcase more than anything else. There was a big emphasis put on the tombstone piledriver in these quasi-squashes. The Black Prince vs. Dave Finlay (2/5/85) The Black Prince was a white guy named Steve Prince who looked like Nigel Mansell and was trying to do a Pat Patton/Kung Fu style gimmick. During the intros he performed a Kendo Nagasaki style sword wielding demonstration. Paula had no fear and got right up in his face despite the katana blade. Apparently, Regal talked about this match on Austin's podcast as for some reason Finlay did not like the Prince one iota and not only sandbagged him the entire bout but was pretty god damn brutal with him. At first it seemed cool because of how stiff Finlay was working, but after a while it was a bit much. Either Prince was the Ricky Morton of Britsh wrestling or the guy was legitimately hurting, and I would suggest the latter. Maybe Finlay had good reason to beat on him, but if it was just some macho crap then Dave comes across as a bit of a jerk. Dave Finlay vs. The Grasshopper (2/27/86) The Grasshopper Phil Johnson was a judoka doing yet another kung fu gimmick. He was a little hard to take seriously since he looked like Alan Dennison prancing around in a gi, but it was just eccentric enough that it worked. He got all fired up and did exaggerated kung fu poses and the contrast with Finlay was fun. Dave pulled out the piledriver again, but not before bumping and selling for the Grasshopper a bit, so there must have been something more at play during that Black Prince bout. As a side note, Walton's commentary was continuing to slip here. He missed was essentially the turning point in a rather short bout when Finlay countered Grasshopper's pin attempt with a punch to the face. Grasshopper got all fired up and took off his jacket and Walton thought it was because he was angry with himself for missing the pinfall chance and somehow hurting his head. The only reason I mention it is because prime Walton never missed a beat.

There's a Tully thread in the Microscope where I watched a bit of his Southwest stuff.

I hate all of the chants in wrestling, but it's not the same as whipping out your smartphone at a club and taking two seconds to use an app.

Kidd is regarded as the greatest lightweight wrestler of all-time. He was the World Lightweight Champion for 26 years and retired undefeated in 1976. Whatever footage there is of him is locked away in ITV's vaults.

Marty Jones vs. Peter Wilson (10/28/81) It's striking how much younger and slimmer Jones looks here. Not sure that move up into the mid-heavyweight ranks was too good for his all-round wrestling ability. He was trying to drag Wilson to a good match here, which was markedly different from how he's been in '84-85. The Jones from the Duran bout would have eaten Wilson alive. Pete Wilson has to be the most nondescript WoS worker I have come across, and that's saying something. Walton was brutally honest in saying he had never been tremendously impressed with Wilson before. He was trying to put over the improvement he'd made, but I don't think it helped. The match was nothing special. Marty Jones vs. Pete Roberts (7/22/82) This was a pretty bout. I knew these two must have had a good bout together at some point. It was every bit as combative as you would expect with neither wrestler giving an inch. The skill level was tremendously high and unlike their other two bouts there were no blown spots. You could maybe argue that it never reached truly great heights (I was tired and would have to watch it again), but they were tied heading into the final round and went all out in a way that few other wrestlers had the gears for. Excellent on first watch. Could be more on second.

LONG, WORKRATE-Y MAIN EVENTS Cena vs Shawn Michaels - Raw 23rd April 2007 This was okay. I appreciate the fact they went out and delivered a long main event by television standards and something close to pay-per-view quality. The structure was kind of simple but fairly well staggered to get them through to the end. The problem for me was that the work just wasn't that interesting. The early takedowns were too slow and Michaels was monotonous with his chops, back elbow and use of the heel. The big moments like Cena catching Michael's plancha attempt really weren't that blow away amazing, and the whole STFU vs. sweet chin music slant was boring really. Michaels as technician is not something I buy or want to see, and without seeing the build-up I couldn't really understand why Cena was being such a prick. On the other hand, I give them credit for going long and not losing me. I can see how if you really like these two it would be captivating. JR and Lawler's commentary was another weak point. Ross sounded jaded. His reaction to Michaels winning was startling lukewarm. *** 1/2 for effort.

Marty Jones vs. Dave Duran (3/20/85) Lenny Hurst vs. Scott McGhee (3/20/85) Marty Jones vs. Scott McGhee (3/20/85) Scott McGhee! That's not as random as it sounds as his father was Geoff Portz, a British heavyweight of some renown who later worked in the AWA, Portland, Stampede and Florida. though Walton referred to him as his trainer here. I think McGhee may have even had a brief stint in the UK in the mid-70s using his real name Garfield Portz. This was shortly after Eddie Graham's suicide, but I don't think McGhee had left the territory yet. I'm pretty sure he returned to Florida before doing another tour with the original UWF then starting with Vince in September. This was billed as a Four Nations knockout tournament with two ten minute semis and a fifteen minute fall. MC Rob Harding butchered an introduction that must have ticked Walton right off because he could be heard bitching about the seating arrangement and how "everyone thinks I want to be right next to the monitor." Kent! As some of you will know, Jones had a lazy eye and always wrestled cross-eyed. Here he wore tinted glasses to ringside, and whoah... Bruce Hart eat your heart out. Dave Duran was a thick stocky Irishman who was basically a rough and tumble type, but he had a neat scummy look and was a decent enough hand. I tell you what, Marty Jones didn't mind letting the world know when he outclassed someone as he would just play cat and mouse with them all match long. I suppose if I were as good as Marty Jones I'd be cocky too. It wasn't as though it was a bad bout; it was just like watching Jordan take some poor sob apart. McGhee vs. Hurst was actually really good. They took it to the mat a lot more than I expected, and while it wasn't exactly Euro style matwork it was pretty slick. For a ten minute knockout bout it was pretty ideal though the finish was much too soft. The final was more dynamic and less mat based, but also a solid bout. It seemed for all money that Jones would go over as he was one of Joint's favourite sons, but they gave the new man to the territory a rub by having it end in a draw. That meant the promise of a re-match some time on television or anywhere in the country as Jones so earnestly put it, but McGhee didn't stick around. That's a shame really as he had a lot of potential in this style. It wouldn't surprise me if it paid more being a WWF jobber though.