ohtani's jacket

I don't think you have to be Japanese to understand it. The strong, silent type is an archetype in Western culture too. Think Cary Cooper.

Thought of some more who've annoyed me over time... Johnny Saint, Mark Rocco, Aja Kong, Lioness Asuka, Jim Cornette, Rick Rude, Jushin Liger, Vader and Owen Hart. Did 180s on the Midnight Express, Rock 'n' Roll Express, Misawa and Choshu in recent years.

If Misawa had a run as best in the world it was in 1994 and 1995.

Because in Japan he's being a legit badass. Whether it's a sumo wrestler stepping up to the dohyo, a judoka or Bunta Sugawara in a yakuza film, a poker face is a legit sign of toughness in Japan. Jumbo used to make facials like Arnold Schwarznegger pulling that thing out of his nose in Total Recall, but I think he was just trying to ape the Americans he'd worked with.

I don't dislike Jumbo as such. I just dislike when people run around saying "Ooh, Jumbo's the best," which is a kneejerk reaction since I probably went through a stage where I also thought Jumbo was the best. I do think his early 80s period is boring as shit. I didn't get the All Japan set, but I watched that Kerry Von Erich match and was bored shitless. With Tenryu, I always get psyched up to watch one of his matches and wind up disappointed. I can't get into his WAR stuff at all. It all seems like cookie cutter Riki Choshu style stuff to me and Tenryu is so clumsy. I could never forgive out why people turn a blind eye to him blowing stuff.

You by far have higher standards for match quality than anyone else I can think of. I don't even point that out as a bad thing. I just think you can be pretty critical. So it doesn't surprise me that a list of wrestlers you don't really care to ever watch again is a long one. It may be because I'm critical, but between every album I've yet to hear and every movie I need to see there isn't much time for anything other than new wrestling. I tend to go through phases in what I watch and I'm currently on a non-watching cycle to boot, but for a lot of workers I can't imagine seeing a match of theirs that adds anything to what I know about them. There were people who I was an uber fan of like Bret Hart of Akira Hokuto who I couldn't watch another match of without turning it off. It's like a closed chapter. I admire the way you power through those yearbooks. One guy who I've heard people say they enjoy lately is Otto Wanz. Man, that guy is torture for me. In fact, German wrestling by sheer reason of the way it's usually handhelds and dark and confusing often gives me a viewing headache.

Casas is a tricky one. We'll never know how good he was in the 80s because UWA didn't have TV and no new handhelds have emerged to date. The UWA TV that does exist from the early 90s is a different style from CMLL. The guys you expect to be good look good, but the matches are consistently fun as opposed to spectacular, and the Santo/Casas match that exists from '92 is clipped to shit. He shows up in 1992 CMLL and is an absolute genius, which I think it's safe to assume didn't happen over night, but we'll never really know how good Casas was compared to his peers during his UWA days. Remember, there were a lot of good workers in Mexico during that timeframe. From what I've seen, most of Casas' contemporaries in the '89-92 period peaked during that TV boom. Of the top workers from that era, only Satanico really looks like a fantastic worker in the early 80s. So, it's hard to gauge. Also, Casas hasn't ever been put under the microscope like Ric Flair because not enough people have seen him work. At his best I think Casas is an absolute genius, but I have a lot of issues with his work. I think his offense is often weak and his matwork can be poor. There are matches where that isn't the case, but the more offense heavy CMLL became the less I liked his work. There's a decade or more from '98-10 or thereabouts where I wouldn't bother watching his matches. It's probably a stylistic thing more than anything else and apathy towards the direction CMLL took, but I still don't like that era of Casas. In fact, the Casas/Santo shit was so dragged out and took so long to resolve itself and then led to crappy tag matches that were several notches down from the great '97 run that burnout would have been a very real possibility had I been watching the stuff in real time. Lately, he's had the Panther feud which I don't love as much as everyone else but is still worth watching and a couple of strong matches against younger guys, but unless there's a Casas set released that proves me wrong I would agree with Loss' point that it's very difficult to argue that Casas was the best in the world for multiple years in a row. Whether that means he's not a candidate for GOAT, I'm not sure. First I think you'd have to start off arguing whether he's the best luchador of all time, which I think is highly debatable. As for Breaks, I think there's a bit more available that you haven't seen yet, though it may not be in full. Breaks is super fresh, which Flair obviously isn't. I remember Ditch saying that if you've seen one Breaks match you've seen them all, which is a fair comment if you don't love his schtick wholeheartedly. That Young David match is immense, though. Actually, both the Young David matches are really good. I think people may be surprised by how fun young Davey Boy Smith was when the Europe set is finally released.

Great thread for the day after the end of the world. I fucking hate Nobuhiko Takada, Jerry Estrada and John Naylor. Shiro Koshinaka I'm willing to give a break because I really like the Satanico match. The list of guys I don't hate but never want to watch another match from would be pretty long.

I think from the documentary makers point of view that would have confused the narrative.

A big Hansen fan would probably find him more varied than someone who's only watched his best known stuff. Personally, I think his matches, though they were almost universally brawls, were varied enough that he doesn't really seem like a one trick pony to me. Again, going back to the Brit doco, McManus was portrayed as the greatest heel of all-time and he wrestled pretty much the same match in all of the footage we have. Now to be fair, the footage is from the latter part of McManus' career, but the Pallo/McManus footage wasn't remarkably different from what we know of Mick. Arguably more intense, but nothing earth shattering. But McManus was such a great performer (and I really, really rate McManus) that I could watch his schtick all day long. Regal didn't sound like much of a fun when the topic of Catweazle and McManus was brought up, so others may disagree, but I think McManus is an example of masterful schtick. Breaks would be another, although Jimmy had more match types than Mick.

I think reinvention is more along the lines of the transformation from Kid Tarzan Jonathan to Exotic Adrian Street and is more apparent in gimmick changes, unmaskings and character turns. In the case of Jumbo, if you were to chart his career as young challenger --> All Japan ace --> grumpy vet, I'd argue that has more to do with aging. No doubt Jumbo adapted to each stage of his career, but I don't think he necessarily reinvented himself. In Funk's case, I don't think the Funk we saw in 1989 was markedly different from the Funk that fought Lawler in the early 80s and I think many of the traits on show were evident in his Japan babyface work, but I'd agree with Dylan's argument that Funk was versatile enough to play a different role in every territory he entered. That's a plus for Funk and one of his strengths. It may be the reason that some people hold him in higher regard than Flair, however I would argue that Funk was in a different position from Flair and that while we may have seen different shades of Flair in each territory there was basically a necessity for him to play Flair just about everywhere he went. But yes, ultimately they both represent the opposite of Duggan. I don't believe that you can discount a wrestler with Duggan like schtick from the GOAT arguments, however. I just got done watching the British doco where they praise career spanning schtick so perhaps that's influencing me. I don't reallly see how the 90s All Japan guys are exempt from criticism either. If you're talking about versatility then surely they failed to change in the same vain as North American examples.

Ok, I take your point about personal tastes. I don't really see how Funk or Jumbo reinvented themselves. The changes in their personas were a natural progression over time. They evolved as they grew older. This may be a positive for them, but does that mean that the absence of reinvention is a negative for others? Why can't it be a plus for some wrestlers and a non-factor for others? Perhaps Flair had a persona that was so over there wasn't any scope to reinvent it. Perhaps what he really needed was better stories, better angles and better feuds. There aren't too many main event attractions who change their style once they're established. Perhaps Flair perfected his act so well that people still wanted to see it long after many of us were sick of it. If you think about it, it's difficult to imagine Flair doing anything different. That may be the trappings of being Ric Flair, but it's hard for me to see it as a negative that he never mixed up his act. In the case of someone like Negro Navarro I would say his transformation was a total success, but I would also temper that by saying the little footage we have of him as a younger worker is not quite as compelling as the worker he evolved into. I don't see how versatility is as important as being really, really good at what you do. Your act is everything in pro-wrestling and since the overwhelming majority of workers never change if you're going to have arguments about who was the best I think it ought to boil down to who was the absolute best at what they did not whether they versatile. If you think that being versatile is part of being the absolute best then fair enough, but like I said I don't think it's imperative that a wrestler changes.

All Japan is the greatet style ever created and you can't say the same about touring NWA champ style? I thought Williams told me people like you don't exist. How many singers, actors, directors, writers or artists in general are eclectic? Not very many. Creative people generally draw from the same well every time. I really don't understand your versatility argument when you have such conservative views on wrestling. You seem to be misinterpreting what jdw and I have said. I never said that 90s All Japan is flawless or the only style worth watching. But yes, I do think it's the best. Anyway, the fact that versatility is so rare is precisely what makes it so extraordinary when someone demonstrates it. When guys are relatively equal in other respects, it's something that should be taken into account. What happens if someone thinks the touring NWA champ style is the greatest style ever created? Who says Flair or anyone else for that matter have to reinvent themselves? And how exactly did Funk or Jumbo do it? They got older.

That's not exactly what I said, but you never were very good at following someone else's argument.

Name some.

All Japan is the greatet style ever created and you can't say the same about touring NWA champ style? I thought Williams told me people like you don't exist. How many singers, actors, directors, writers or artists in general are eclectic? Not very many. Creative people generally draw from the same well every time. I really don't understand your versatility argument when you have such conservative views on wrestling.

That's true of most lucha workers, though. The majority of lucha trios aren't workrate trios matches where everyone stands out. Usually there's a central feud and the other guys are window dressing or the match is flat because they're mailing it in or taking it easy that night. What's more, Santo is a technico which means he has little schtick to work comedy all match like a Satanico or Emilio or Fuerza. With Santo, it's more about the same moves, the same match patterns and the same performances in singles matches. Often the matches are excellent, but you can usually call what Santo is going to do in the ring.

Rey in the WWE is so much better than Rey in WCW or AAA it's not even funny and I don't even like the spots he does or Michael Cole's god awful commentary about the HEART AND SOUL OF REY MYSTERIO! He just had flat out better matches.

Maybe, but one of the biggest gripes about lucha is that it's illogical and it's full of exaggerated, theatrical bumping. Fans accept it as part and parcel of lucha and see it as both comforting and amusing, but US wrestling gets held up to a different light. Different expectations, I suppose.

No, it didn't shed any light on Big Daddy. It was a digest version look at the history of British wrestling not some 18 1/2 hour Ken Burns epic. There was some footage of Rocco, but it was one of those documentaries where they give generalised answers for everything (such as the decline in popularity) and you accept it because it's a doco and not meant to be a thesis on the subject.

Where are all these matches where the arm work is paid off?

It's from '95.

Yeah, Atlantis Chronos Goth I think she calls herself.

I think Funk had one of the great personas of all-time. As others have mentioned everyone knows someone who looks or acts like Terry Funk and he had tremendous range from serious right through to deranged, my favourite being affronted like the time Flair told him he wasn't top ten material. But he's one of those workers where I'll pick chunks of his career to watch. I like his stuff in Memphis, the NWA and WCW more than any other period of his career. Do you think his brawling, his selling or his fun persona prevented him from having better matches?

Lucha is huge on schtick especially in trios, but just as there are multiple ways to work a trios match, the best workers have multiple routines. The Brazos and Infernales are good examples of this. Casas, Dandy, Panther, Santo etc. are all great workers, but they basically wrestled the same match again and again depending on the stip. Most of the time there's a comfort in that as Jerry alluded to, but El Hijo del Santo, in particular, is one of the most repetitive workers of all time.