ohtani's jacket

Loss has somehow come across a bunch of 50s and 60s footage. Some of it has been in circulation before, some of it is new, and some of it is longer versions of footage that already exists. Jim Londos vs Ivan Rasputin (Clark Sports, Chicago Rainbo Arena, 09/13/1950) I've long sung Jim Londos praises and argued that he should be in the top 100 of the GWE regardless of how limited the footage is. This isn't a game changer in that argument, but it does give us a fun maestro performance to add to his resume. I enjoyed his interview at the start (probably more than the match itself, if I'm being honest.) He showed a keen sense of humour and I liked those flashy grins. The match was a typical Chicago bout. Ivan is a fun worker but this was by the numbers. Londos reminded me of Blue Panther after he lost his mask. Nothing really surprised me about this having watched just about more Chicago than most people have had hot dinners, but it was entertaining for what it was.

This was billed as tecnicos vs rudos. I can understand Hector Garza working as a tecnico in Monterrey, but that's a pretty short memory when it comes to Zumbido. This was more of a typical scrappy, bullshit Monterrey match than the trios from the week before, but it had its moments. A large part of the match seemed to be about Garza's physique, which wasn't great, but they loved a good size comparison during this era of Monterrey. Zumbido had one awesome flurry but was stuck on the sidelines for most of the bout. Halloween and Damian were engaging but there was a lot of smoke and mirrors. My ad\vice is to watch the other bout.

This was an awesome, grimy Monterrey trios match. It was supposed to be rudos vs. rudos, but as we all know, Super Parka is our hero. La Familia de Tijuana were one of the best trios units of the early 00s and their matches are always worth watching. I wouldn't have imagined that when all I knew of them was WCW job guys + Super J Cup Damian impressions, but it's the God's honest truth. Watching them square off against Zumbido was a treat. That dude is low key one of the best lucha workers of the 00s. This match set up the Super Parka vs. Nicho singles bout, but it was far better than that bout.

Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen (WWF, 2/16/81) This was better than I remember Stan being in New York. There were some wonky moments where he had to stand around pretending to work a hold and some power spots from Backlund that would have been more effective later in the match, but once Bob started bleeding it turned into the type of wild spectacle you expect from a Hansen match.

Bob Backlund vs. Masked Superstar (WWF, 10/17/83) I haven't watched much Masked Superstar as there's something off-putting about the gimmick for me, but I thought this was really good. The beginning was mostly focused around Backlund striving to get revenge for Masked Superstar assaulting Backlund's protégé, Eddie Gilbert. I believe Superstar gave him a couple of reverse neck breakers in the ring then gave him another on the concrete. Backlund was extremely good at playing the pissed off babyface. He was better at that role than the smiling All-American babyface. He knew how to inflict pain better than most heels do. Things heated up when Superstar took over on offense, and I thought the finishing stretch was exciting. This set up a return match that wasn't televised and then the following month Backlund dropped the belt to the Sheik. There's no indication here that Backlund is about to be dethroned, but they definitely aren't doing him any favors.

Being shunted around in late night TV slots is not really my idea of high profile. There's no evidence that Catch was even consistently shown on French TV in the early 80s. If it was, the archives are missing plenty of episodes. It doesn't pass the eye test either, as the drop off in quality from the 50s & 60s to the 70s and 80s is striking. Was there a US territory with television that was worse than French Catch at the time? ITV had a higher profile, but after the Wembley shows there was a noticeable downturn. If you compare 1983 Japan to 1983 Joint Promotions, there's no comparison. The buzz around wrestling in Japan at that time was closer to the buzz around wrestling in the UK during the 60s. I have no problem calling European wrestling one of the major centres of pro-wrestling along with Japan, Mexico and the US, especially with the research that Phil has been doing into other European countries like Greece and Spain, but not the centre.

What was special about Japanese wrestling in the early 80s wasn't that they had network deals (Japan is a much smaller country than the US and had no cable television at the time.) The impressive part was that for a small pocket of time, wrestling made into the prime time TV hours. It didn't last that long but it was impressive by pro-wrestling standards. However, I don't think there's a straight connection to be made between US wrestling and overseas territories because of the share size of America and how many different affiliate stations the US had. Not to mention cable. The UK and France are also much smaller countries. I don't think France any high profile wrestling TV of any sort in the early 80s. The UK was struggling at the time. The afternoon WoS spot didn't really compare to the Japanese prime time slots as far as I'm aware. Japan was arguably the biggest wrestling mecca in the world in the early 80s. The UK was minor. France was irrelevant for the most part.

Don't forget that All In wrestling was popular in England in the 1930s until the London City Council banned it. When wrestling returned under the Mountevans rules, wresters were meant to adhere to the rules. Over time, those rules were bent or manipulated for dramatic effect since it was all a work. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a State Athletic Commission or any other authority that had quite that much influence over an American promotion. The closest equivalent I can think of is the Comisión de Box y Lucha Libre Mexico D.F. Another factor, aside from ITV regulations, is the fact that Joint barely made an effort to create any sort of continuity on television. Occasionally, there would be a rematch of a match that happened on television a few weeks ago, or the continuation of a heel or face turn, but it was largely up to Kent Walton to catch those details. Promos and angles were rare, and what the audience tuned into for the most part was a house show from a specific part of the UK. There was barely any self-promotion aside from Walton praising the local promoters every now and again. It was an outdated television format by the time the 70s rolled round. The presentation was similar to the original 1950s US wrestling broadcasts. That said, the big name heels were always in demand for TV. Breaks and McManus appeared on TV far more than the blue eyes. As did Haystacks and Kendo when he was a heel. Speaking of All In wrestling, I am certain that fans of American wrestling would gravitate heavily towards the independent UK promotions of the time if there was more footage available. I can imagine the likes of Dominic Pye being hugely popular with American fans.

Bob Backlund vs. Superstar Billy Graham (WWF, 12/28/82) This was another harmless bout between the two. It wasn't a great Backlund match but they can't all be four star classics. At least it forced Backlund to step outside his usual match structure and work a reasonably entertaining sprint. The match was mostly built around Vince and Gorilla squabbling over whether special guest referee Swede Hansen was going to remain impartial. That led to an exciting finish where it didn't seem like Hansen was going to call for the submission on Backland's chicken wing. He finally called it and Graham and Hansen ended up trading blows after the bout, leading to Gorilla trolling Vince over whether he was convinced about Hansen being impartial or not. One of the lumberjacks was Masa Saito. It was never gonna happen, but a Masa Saito vs. Backlund feud would have been cool.

A quick look at other shows from 1975 lists Jim Breaks, Alan Dennison and Sid Cooper, Mick McManus, Brian Maxine, Bobby Barnes, Steve Logan, Giant Haystacks and others making regular appearances. There's a Woking taping from 11/5/75 that has three straight heel vs. face matches featuring Sid Cooper, Bobby Barnes and Judo Al Hayes with Zoltan Boscik and Klondyke Jake matches that were taped but didn't air, so it was likely an entire show of heel vs. blue eye matches. Wrestlers were expected to wrestle clean , and it is true that there was less violence than in other countries and that the refs upheld the rules more strictly than in other places, however it wasn't a technical wrestling paradise. I wish it were, but it was professional wrestling and people came to see the personalities as much as the action that happened inside the ring.

This was an extremely fun undercard bout although it was basically cut into a highlights reel by the Televisa people. The focus appeared to be on Felino vs. Averno, which was a cool matchup. I expected that they'd be the final pair, so I was surprised when it wound up being Felino vs. Mephisto. Then I put two and two together and realized they had a title match the following week. Virus went the distance and got to square off against the Infernales, which I enjoyed. I was also taken by Maximo. I don't think I've ever seen him this young. This was a really entertaining episode of CMLL TV wrestling-wise.

Bob Backlund vs. Superstar Billy Graham (WWF, 11/22/82) I've gotta be honest, this wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It wasn't a particularly good match, but I expected it to be a low point in my WWF viewing and it wasn't anywhere near that bad. The reasons for that were that it was only 12 minutes long (which is non-offensive in itself) and story-wise I liked the idea of the ex-champion coming back for revenge several years later. From that point of view, even the gimmick change worked. I also thought it was interesting that Backlund was using headbutts, fingers to the eye and closed fists, indicating exactly how he pissed he was at Superstar destroying the championship belt.

Every thread should be diverted with WoS talk. Bob Backlund vs. Jimmy Snuka (WWF, 9/18/82) Snuka is so over at this point that he gets cheered over Backlund. Bob-haters are always going on about how he was disliked in Philly, but this is the first time I've heard him booed. Another slow match. They get into a tangled mess where both men are trying to cut the blood supply off from opposing limbs. Dick and Kal grow restless over the amount of "inaction" and Dick practically shoots his load when they run the ropes. Fortunately for me, the downtime gives Kal the chance to go on bizarre rants. He starts rattling off the great champions of the past and then wonders who would win a fight between Backlund and Londos (good question.) He also starts rambling about the old days when matches went 8 or 9 hours and guys would come home from the wrestling at 2 or 3 in the morning and have to explain to their wives where they'd been. He's particularly amused by this and goes on about divorce rates and husbands being whacked over the head with rolling pins. As for the match, advice to readers -- watch the Snuka/Backlund cage match and ignore the rest.

It may have been inspired by Freddie Mercury, though Freddie didn't dye his hair different colors. I'm not really a fan of the gimmick change, or the drop off work, though I can understand he may have been tired of doing the Beautiful Bobby Barnes schtick. He was such an entertaining worker in the 70s.

She'd been wrestling for a good ten years at the time, though. That's a lot of mileage on a Joshi pro wrestler from that era. I suspect she would have slowed down regardless of her illness. She still had some bangers when she was working her way through her health problems in '97. I kind of like some of her GAEA stuff. It's not the way you wanna remember Dynamite Kansai and others of her generation, but everybody gets old eventually and there was some decent post-prime stuff from her up until the period I'm familiar with (2004.)

Bob Backlund vs. Jimmy Snuka (WWF, 7/31/82) This was a whole bunch of nothing. Snuka made a big deal about going backstage and bringing Lou Albano to ringside since Backlund had Skaaland with him, which is fair enough. Rudman was obsessed with this joke he thought up about changing Fred Blassie's pencil neck geek to fat neck freak. He also addressed drug users telling them there's no bigger high than the high Backlund gets from coming to the ring. That may be true. Instead of Backlund controlling the beginning of the bout, it was Snuka on top, and it wasn't pretty. The match ended with a big brawl where Skaaland threw shome shitty looking punches at Albano, who did an even shittier job of selling them. Bob did land a nasty looking piledriver on the Superfly, though.

That reminds me of Bobby Barnes in the UK who went from being a Gorgeous George type to a punk rocker with dyed hair. I wonder if Vince was serious or he was trying to push Howdy Doody out the door.

Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine (WWF, 4/23/84) It's so weird seeing Backlund as a former world heavyweight champion, but kind of cool seeing him square off with Valentine one last time as the Hammer's the opponent most synonymous with Backlund in my mind. I'm not sure of the circumstances surrounding Backlund's departure from the WWF. He didn't last too long after the death of Vince Sr. I wonder what sort of role there would have been for him if he'd stayed on in the WWF. Could he have hung around the IC level? Turned heel at some point? Does he have a place in the Rock 'n' Roll era?

What's my boy Super Parka doing at an Arena Coliseo show? He brings the Monterrey vibes with him and these guys have a fun, crowd-pleasing trios match. Casas is over with the Coliseo crowd. Do something with him CMLL! He works some fun exchanges with Black Tiger throughout the match. El Terrible has been forgotten about it seems, but he's growing his hair out for a rainy day. Porky does an amusing job of mocking Terrible's facial expressions. Super Parka is super throughout and I would have loved to have seen him have a problem run in Mexico City. They probably wouldn't have done much with him, but I'm sure he would have made every match better. This was one of those nothing matches on paper that was a total surprise because the workers were allowed to work their craft.

It's been almost 20 years since this match happened, so I'm trying to keep an open mind. I don't think the divide between lucha fans is as strong as it was at the time (hopefully not), so there's nothing for me to gain from trashing this. The biggest positive was it was two younger stars trying hard to have a dramatic and suspenseful title match. They don't quite get the rhythm right but effort's appreciated. Like a lot of lucha at the time, the match is entirely built around the third caida and they go all out to have a spectacular fall. The enthusiasm outweighs the execution for the most part, but I can understand the excitement over this bout.

I was ready to hate on this, but it was actually pretty good. It's not a sublime Kawada performance. If you're looking for a sublime Kawada performance, you're watching the wrong decade. However, it was perfectly good meathead wrestling. Everything they did was hard-hitting and made sense from one beat to the next. Far better than I expected.

Bob Backlund vs. Bob Orton Jr. (WWF, 6/26/82) This was a fun lumberjack match with Orton doing an excellent job of playing to the cheap seats, but like I said in my previous post, I really wish we'd seen more of this feud. They had a match at MSG in August of '82 that wasn't taped. The August MSG card that was taped featured the excellent Buddy Rose match, so I can't complain too much, but they moved on from this a bit too quickly on television. In fact, the finish sets up a new feud between Orton and a disgustingly roided Ivan Putski.

Bob Backlund vs. Bob Orton Jr. (WWF, 5/22/82) This was a really good match. I wish they'd had a longer feud against each other as they were evenly matched. Orton wasn't the most demonstrative heel in the history of professional wrestling, but he knew how to get under an opponent's skin and he was a proficient stooge and bumper on top of being a competent wrestler. That made him a solid match up for killer Bobby Backlund, who could mow through an opponent if they didn't have their wits about them.

I'm so glad you mentioned his hair! What's up with that?

I don't think I've seen that before. Surely, I'd remember him putting the snake in his mouth. It's from '71 which again points to more lax broadcasting standards.