ohtani's jacket

The 1/17/11 Punk/Cena match is something you might want to check out, Jerome. It's a pretty good match in spite of an awful backstage vignette, a shitty CM Punk gimmick and angle and a crappy finish.

Pierroth vs. Mascara Sagrada, Mexican National Light Heavyweight title, 2/1/91 If ever there was a test of how good Pierroth was during this time frame then this is it. Mascara Sagrada was not... very good... After a while, you accept him as part of the crew and sometimes you're impressed with what a rudo can do with him in trios, but we talking about trios. This was a twenty minute, two out of three falls title match. It wasn't exactly a miracle match, but it could've easily been a disaster. It was more of a heel vs. face match than a true title match, partially because Pierroth wasn't good enough on the mat to carry Sagrada but also because his strengths lay in being a "character worker," which he'd use to great effect the following year when his charisma exploded. The work is outrageously bad when Sagrada is on offense as you'd expect, but pretty entertaining when Pierroth is in control. Pierroth was sort of a second tier worker (as much as I like him), but he pulled this off. Would've loved to have seen him against Octagon, who was the best possible Mascara Sagrada on the roster.

Hoping to keep more up to date with lucha this year. Black Terry/El Hijo Del Pirata Morgan/Skyde vs. Negro Navarro/Trauma 1/Trauma 2 Arena Neza 1/1/12 -- This was ok. I read some criticism of the Terry/Trauma II matwork but it was nowhere near as frustrating as it can be. Navarro vs. Skyde was a nice change of pace but they could've done more. The best parts were the Terry/Navarro exchanges. Ever since those clips of Terry and Navarro fighting each other cut to Metallica's Unforgiven I've been clamouring for a singles match between the two. I could quit watching and die a happy man if it ever happens. El Hijo Del Pirata Morgan was a bit disappointing in this and played an odd role as fall guy. El Hijo Del Santo vs. Angel Mortal Jr., Arena Neza 1/1/12 -- This was boring as shit. The same match Santo's been working for twenty years against a bad worker. Blue Panther/Atlantis/Solar vs. Ultimo Guerrero/Felino/Negro Navarro, 1/14/12 -- This was a good match. Panther and Felino were awful on the mat, but the Solar/Navarro exchanges were amazing. I'm one of those people who think they wrestle too often, especially in matches like these, but I was floored by their work here. More surprising, though, were the Atlantis/Ultimo Guerrero exchanges. Atlantis looked great, but Ultimo Guerrero was fantastic. I don't want to get carried away and call it the best match he's ever had, but it was certainly the most I've enjoyed him. Atlantis, Delta, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs. Morphosis, Psicosis, Volador Jr. [MEX TRIOS] CMLL GDL 1/17/12 -- This seemed okay. I think you have to be in rhythm with the match to enjoy this type of wrestling as there's no breathing space between moves. Prefer the darkened arenas to the usual CMLL lighting. Chico Che vs. Black Terry, IWRG 1/22/12 Chico Che vs. Black Terry, hair vs. hair, IWRG 1/29/12 -- This is what I'm talking about when I say Terry is better at working brawls than maestro tags or IWRG matwork. Both these matches deserve their own posts, but let me just say that the first match is an excellent mano a mano bout and the second is best Terry match I've seen. You should all go watch it now instead of reading any more, but long time IWRG viewers will be pleased to know that it takes the best aspects of Terry's feuds from '06-08 and pits them against a legitimately good worker in Che. Both guys bleed buckets, the strikes are great and the headbutts legendary. The key spots in the hair match work really well, especially the stuff lifted from Terry's match against Multifacético that Raging Noodles and I reviewed a few years ago. Loved all the involvement with the seconds and thought Alan Extreme's tope was sensational (and extremely well caught by BTJr.) The opening falls were fleshed out, the decider was dramatic while still being appropriate for the size of the arena, and the bullshit with the ref was fun. Terry was in his element bleeding and selling and these matches ruled.

Well, I watched the pimped Bryan/Henry cage match from November and it was a whole bunch of nothing. Is it just me or are they using a smaller ring these days? Something about the whole arena & ring set-up always bothers me when I watch WWE.

Regal's had more of a Hall of Fame career than a lot of these other guys.

Y'know, watching the promos Jesse cut as an active wrestler it's striking how much he improved through commentating and doing The Body Shop. That's natural I guess, but you'd think Jesse the worker would've been a better promo than he was.

They were very similar.

They didn't really. Joshi girls were working the same style from the mid-70s on.

WWF production was also good in making them seem good at their jobs and a Big Deal. John A guy like Okerlund had a good voice, nice phrasing and a good sense of timing. Considering he worked with pretty simple camera set-ups most of the time I don't know that production values had much to do with it. The interviews he used to do inside the arenas had better production values than other companies, especially the promotions that did studio tapings, but I don't really see what that has to do with Gene. Replace him with another guy and he would've been in the same set-up. With Gene it was all about the voice and the demeanour.

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #33 -- Demolition Demolition vs. Strike Force was a fun series. I'm sure the matches were structurally flawed if you really want to get into it, but fun matches are a God send in 80s WWF. Their Wrestlemania match was the weakest of the lot, but the rematches were the best Strike Force stuff I've seen so far. The Demos were a good unit. I've really liked what I've seen from them in shorter up tempo matches. I dunno if they were the Kings of Psychology, but they definitely had a good thing going.

One day you'll have your eyes opened like Saul on the road to Damascus.

Well, I thought Yamazaki was the best worker in the second UWF (and probably in UWF-I too until Tamura matured), and I would point at Tamura's peak as being definitively during his RING years. It's not a big knock against Fujiwara, I thought he was still excellent then, and had several great matches. I'm not a huge Yamazaki fan as I think his matwork was lacking, but his stand-up game was fairly good and he often had burn burners with the lower-to-upper midcard guys. But he was jobbed out too much in 1990 for me to really consider him the best worker in the second UWF. Plus he continued his run of sickening matches with Nobuhiko Takada.

I think that's stretching things a bit. Gorilla Monsoon, Gene Okerlund, Jesse Ventura, Bobby Heenan, Vince McMahon and Howard Finkel were a large part of what people enjoyed about WWF during that era. Some of the praise they receive may be due to nostalgia, but I don't see how anyone can honestly argue that they weren't good at what they did and that their own screen personas were merely byproducts of the WWF's success. Monsoon was a crappy play-by-play announcer but his strength was insulting people and he was at least good at that. There is enough 80s footage available where those men are not involved to know that the alternatives were poor and that the overall product would've suffered without their involvement. Having said that, Nitro & WCW had some of the worst announcing in the history of professional wrestling and was for a time highly successful, so we can't give the frontmen too much credit. Instead, I would argue that those 80s WWF guys were simply talented performers and good at their jobs.

I always liked Larry Z as an announcer, pre-Nitro era and all that Bischoff bullshit. He had a good voice.

Gorilla was great as a foil for Heenan and Ventura as well as the various managers he used to interact with at ringside, but if the Tito project has taught me anything it's that he was unbelievably shitty as a play-by-play announcer.

Seriously, I'm watching an excellent Brian Pillman vs Barry Windham match. And there we go, Ross go on a tangeant about Pillman never being the biggest guy on any athletic team he was part of. And he drops the line "He was the smallest kid on his little league team." For fuck's sake Ross. And then he goes on and on with the *entire* Pillman athletic credentials, complete with coach name and awards he recieved, while there's a wrestling match taking place. That kind of stuff is what annoy the shit out of me. It's not good announcing, plain and simple. It's not fun, it's not interesting. Ross is noticably worse when he's alone, because there's no Missy or Paul E. to distract him from college sports. Also, I realized it's a lot worse when you actually pay attention to it, which means this thread hasn't helped my watching lately. EDIT : and then later on the same show, during a Dan Spivey squash, from nowhere he talks about how the Atlanta Hawks could use a guy like this and goes on another tangeant... This on the same show. I mean... And then talks about yet another damn football team, during the same match !! Jeeez... Those are great examples of the shittiness of Jim Ross.

PWFG is a void to me that I need to fill eventually. But I'm not convinced since I thought Fujiwara already wasn't as great in 1989 as he was before. The greatest Fujiwara matches happened in the first UWF to me. I agree the second UWF was a far more developped style. Almost straight away after he jumped he had the best UWF match to date with Kazuo Yamazaki. Physically his prime may have been years earlier, but in wrestling I think a person's prime should cover the peak of their in-ring work and I think that came later than the first UWF & his return to New Japan. To me, that's like the argument that Tamura's UWF-i work is part of his prime when his RINGS stuff blows it away.

Interesting divide between people who like the football references and those who don't. I don't have a problem with the concept in general. Walton did it all the time on WoS for Grey's football background, Myers' arm wrestling and all of the various judokas. The problem was the way Ross did it. WoS had that time between rounds for Walton to drop in little facts about the pub some worker owned or whatever a guy had been doing since the last time he was on television and it was all very colloquial. Ross would beat you over the head with it. I do agree with Loss that he did a great job of getting the powerhouse Lex Luger over, but my recollection of it was less to do with real sports and more to do with Ross gushing over the total package's physical credentials. And I disagree that what Jesse and Vince did was unremarkable. Didn't we have that big long thread that touched on doing the basics right? I doubt listening to Bruce Prichard or somebody else would have killed my enthusiasm for wrestling at that time but it sure would have sucked. Perhaps to enjoy Jesse you really have to appreciate how right he was whenever he pointed out babyface hypocrisy, McMahon's bias and the other side of the coin in most of the angles and storylines.

The second UWF was a far more developed version of shoot style and Fujiwara was the best worker in the company and arguably the best worker in Japan in 1990. Stylistically, I think his work peaked in PWFG with the classics he had there. He probably could've had more great matches in that timeframe if he hadn't taken a backseat to Funaki and Shamrock, but PWFG is definitely the peak of his artistry to me. His New Japan stuff is a fun distraction, but the real wrestling took place in UWF & PWFG.

Well, if that didn't happen during Fujiwara's peak in the first UWF, or even during his comeback to NJ and then the second UWF when he was already past his prime but still excellent, I don't see how it would happen. I'm not sure what was on the 80's project, but I would guess most of his big matches were there. Really, basically, if the first UWF stuff didn't do it, well, don't hold your breath. Fujiwara's prime was from '89-92.

I can understand why Ross did it in theory (WWF commentators did the same thing and Ross himself continued doing it when he moved out East), but in practice it was ridiculous. Whenever a guy turned heel, he'd flip it and start saying things like: "I can't believe this former one-time member of the Green Bay Packers could commit such a heinous act" or "I wonder what Luger's Jacksonville teammates think of him now." Sometimes he wouldn't even bother with that and lust over their football background even when they were a heel. I don't buy the whole "real sports" play-by-play gimmick. He was a big fat company shill. And if you watch enough WCW for a project or a poll he starts to really grate on your nerves. The most annoying thing about him was the ridiculous 180s he'd do when people turned. All commentators do this, but Ross was exceptionally bad. He was so unbelievably whiney. I don't think he ever got the emotional tone right his entire career.

The problem was that you had to hear about it every single time you saw Brian Pillman, etc. Not only that but he'd drop lines in the middle of a match like: "what courage, what tenacity from this former two-time Second Team All-American defensive tackle for the Miami University Redskins." The guy should've commentated college football. It was obviously his calling in life.

I really don't need to think about JR making love.

The first PPV they showed on TV when I was a kid was SummerSlam '89. The SummerSlam the year before had been a massive deal on home video. The last one they showed was Royal Rumble '91. After that, parents got WWF taken off the air.

That was the same for us. We only got Superstars, but we got to see the PPVs free-to-air. They were months and months behind, however. If you wanted to see them sooner you had to rent them on home video.