ohtani's jacket

Shachou means company president, but it loses something in translation. If you hear Jumbo or someone talk about Baba they will address him as shachou similar to how a teacher or doctor is always called sensei or an athlete senshu.

I have a hard time believing Baba took a hands-off approach simply because Japan doesn't work that way. Baba was too much of a shachou in all other respects to not have a major hand in what was happening in the ring. Not only that, but if you give workers too much "leash," so to speak, you're more likely to see a spotfest than an All Japan match.

My understanding of it is quite different from John's. I've always heard that Baba was quite hands on about how he wanted his native talent to work (which you'd expect from a shachou), and was directly involved in the stylistic change that occurred in the early 90s.

Nobody knows what's going to happen down the pike.

I think it's entirely possible that Baba instructed them to do specific things in matches given what we know about Baba and his control over the ringwork. In fact., I'd argue that the decline in All Japan ringwork corresponded directly with the deterioration in Baba's health and the lessening of his input. If Baba had died earlier, I don't think you would've ever seen a match on the level of 12/93.

It doesn't really make a difference. Romaji is only really used for passports.

"Oh" is a non-Hepburn method of representing the long vowel sound without using a macron above the "o". Most of the time the macron is left off and the name written as otani or muto, but people with these names can choose to add an "h" if they wish.

Well, there are only half a dozen essential matches from any promotion in a given year. Obviously with a Yearbook format there's going to be times when you wish you'd seen more of wrestler x, y or z, but I wonder if theme based selections wouldn't be a better idea at times. If you take 1990, for example, is there a way to document just how much a push Angel Azteca received or Funaki's blazing push to the top? That sort of thing.

So did you love it or not? There seems to be a conflict between your opening and closing statements I haven't watched this for years, but the story is pretty obvious isn't it? It's probably the greatest "sports story" ever told in a wrestling match. The finish gets a pop for the "lift", a louder pop for the beginning of the count and a standing ovation/chant after the fact. Takako had a breakout year in '93, but it was all downhill for Joshi from this point on. She was a hard worker, but she lacked the tools that were necessary to be a top star. Unfortunately, you left off a lot of her best matches from this year.

This --- Volk Han vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto (6/15/95)

The best WOS match I have ever seen. Mind you, it is the only WOS match I have seen, but it is like Misawa-Kawada good to me. Do any other WOS matches compete with this one? I don't really know the answer to this question, but I liked Myers/Grey so much I wanted to see everything else World of Sport had to offer. Suffice to say, I haven't been disappointed. Grey, in particular, was fantastic and in my opinion one of the all-time great babyfaces in professional wrestling. Myers was also a great worker but ended up working a bullshit Bruce Lee type gimmick that ruled everything that was cool about him in the early to mid-70s.

Nothing could have prevented the downward spiral of New Japan. The seeds were there when they were doing bumper business.

Sadly, that's the only Billy Robinson match that The Wrestling Channel guys found in the ITV faults. It's a very good match with a lot of great Greco-Roman stuff, but it's not very representative of WoS as a whole. The purest representation of wrestling as a legit sport was shoot-style. Here are my recommended WoS matches from Wrestling KO. Most of these are on youtube: Jim Breaks vs. Adrian Street (2/12/72) Jack Fallon vs. Tibor Szakacs (aired 4/19/72) Les Kellett vs. Johnny Czeslaw (11/16/72) Clay Thomson vs. Reg Trood (12/30/72 TV) Jim Breaks vs Johnny Saint (3/14/73) Pete Roberts vs. Caswell Martin (4/4/73) Jim Breaks vs Johnny Saint (5/3/73) Jackie Pallo vs. Johnny Kwango (5/3/73) Alan Sarjeant vs. Clay Thomson (6/6/73) Alan Sarjeant vs. Eddie Capelli (12/13/73) Robby Baron vs. Peter Szacaks (3/14/74) Mick McManus vs. Tony St. Clair (3/14/74) Alan Sarjeant vs. Mick McManus (11/20/74) Johnny Czeslaw vs. Romany Riley (12/4/74) Sid Cooper vs. Clive Myers (1/23/75) Tibor Szakacs vs. Prince Kumali (2/13/75) Robby Baron vs. Alan Sarjeant (4/17/75) Steve Grey vs. Ken Joyce (7/31/75) Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (10/8/75) Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (11/20/75) Johnny Saint vs. Mick McManus (11/20/75) Kung Fu vs. Mick McManus (4/21/76) Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (6/30/76) Terry Rudge vs. Marty Jones (11/30/76) Zoltan Boscik vs. Alan Sarjeant (12/29/76) Clive Myers vs. Alan Sarjeant (2/21/77) Steve Grey vs. Mick McManus (5/21/77) [Cup Final Day] Jim Breaks vs. Vic Faulkner (7/5/77) Kung Fu/Pete Roberts vs. Johnny Kincaid/Dave Bond (10/4/77) Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (12/6/77) Tony St. Clair vs. Dave Bond (12/6/77) Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (7/26/78) Bobby Barnes vs. Steve Grey (7/26/78) Steve Grey vs. Mark Rocco (10/11/78) Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (12/3/79) Jon Cortez vs. Pete Lapaque (1/28/80) Johnny Saint vs Steve Grey (1/28/80) [Walton rant match] John Cortez vs. Jeff Kaye (2/5/80) Pete Roberts vs. Pat Roach (2/13/80) Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (2/13/80) Pat Roach vs. Gil Singh (4/21/80) Mark Rocco vs. Pete Roberts (5/28/80) Johnny South vs. Ringo Rigby (8/5/80) Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez (2/2/81) Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey (2/11/81) Jon Cortez vs. Bobby Barnes (3/31/81) Steve Grey vs. Jim Breaks (5/12/81) Marty Jones vs. Johnny South (10/7/81) Johnny Saint vs. Vic Faulkner (11/18/81) Ken Joyce vs. Johnny Kidd (JIP Rd 4, 1/27/82) Fit Finlay vs Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (3/9/82) Marty Jones vs. Dynamite Kid (1/19/83) Fit Finlay vs. Alan Kilby (3/23/83) Terry Rudge vs. Dalibar Singh (10/11/83) Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (4/4/84) Marty Jones vs Bull Blitzer (Steve Wright) (4/23/86) Johnny Saint vs. Robbie Brookside (4/28/87)

Rumi Kazama was the owner of LLPW not Kandori. Kandori had a rep for being tough because she was a legit judoka and shot on Jackie Sato and all the rest. Hokuto trash talked her a bunch in the lead-up to the fight including the promo at the beginning of the match where she rubbishes Kandori's talent. Most of the feud was about Hokuto claiming Kandori didn't have the heart for pro-wrestling because she wasn't a real pro-wrestler.

Tried watching Flair/Arn but turned it off after five minutes. Regardless of whether they hated each other, it's Flair vs. Arn in 1995. I have my doubts about that match-up in their primes let alone in '95. If you want to watch some vintage Arn from that era look to his involvement in the Dustin vs. Studd Stable feud instead.

That Toyota/Fukuoka match was really good. Compare it to the mess they had in JWP.

This is far from a great match but I wouldn't exactly call it an exhibition. It's a fairly competitive bout. What's wrong with restarting from a standing position? It's a hell of a lot more realistic than feeding holds. Anyway, I disagree with Ditch completely. I'd rather watch the Malenko match over cartoony pro-style Fujiwara any day of the week. Fujiwara was great at pro-style but I want to see him wrestle. 1993 into 1994 was pretty much the tail end of Fujiwara's run as the best worker in Japan and I don't think this or the Hase match are anything special but the Hashimoto match from '94 is incredible.

The way I see it the angles and promos are the set-up and the matches are the pay-off. Dibiase worked an era where for whatever reason the pay-offs sucked. I would love to know what set stuff like Slaughter/Sheik, Valentine/Santana, Savage/Steamboat and Savage/Santana apart in terms of delivering satisfying pay-offs when so many 80s WWF feuds had terrible matches. As for whether a guy can be an all-time great without great matches, it really depends on how strict your criteria is. There's plenty of luchadores and European guys who I'd consider all-time greats despite the lack of footage. Technique goes a long way in my book. Unfortunately, that's an area that actually hurts Ted. Dibiase had great execution but what about his match building skills? That involves technique too.

My comment about 90s workrates styles being passe specifically referred to people not watching actual 90s workrate styles like hot period AAA anymore.

More like envelopes of cash from the pro-wrestling offices.

He was only eligible for awards from '81-83 and again from '84-85. Appparently, he won another "Technique Award" in "84, which is amusing given the criticism of him in this thread, but it's an evening newspaper. Even if it meant something, the winners were bought and paid for. Here's a little rule that comes in handy. If you've ever heard anything about wrestling in Japan that sounded impressive (for example, "wrestling is covered by major newspapers in Japan"), divide your reaction by two thirds and you'll be right.

Current fans? Lapsed fans? Do you just hang with a lot of Real Japan fans? I mean, I imagine the majority of of people who go to Real Japan shows are there mainly to see Tiger Mask. But that's not really a lot of people. "Many", in this case, would seem to be relative. Well, when I say many obviously it's not *that* many, but Tiger Mask is a fairly standard answer to this sort of question. Most of the people I speak to are (or were) Showa era fans because that was the height of wrestling's popularity in Japan. Most of them are basing their opinion on their memories of the Tiger Mask phenomenon. I doubt that many of them have reappraised the matches. It's a bit like the 1980s WWF boom in the sense that friends of mine can still recall the names of "Ravishing" Rick Rude or Jake "the Snake" Roberts regardless of how big a draw those guys were because of how massive the exposure was. I think it's a mistake to say that Shinya Hashimoto sold out X amount of Tokyo Dome shows hence he was a ginormous pro-wrestling star when in fact wrestling's exposure was perhaps a third what it was during Sayama's run, as well as the fact that selling out the Tokyo Dome is an impressive feat for pro-wrestling but not an uncommon occurence for the Dome in general. In 1996, Mariah Carey sold out 150,000 tickets in three hours. In 1998, she sold out 200,000 tickets in under an hour. Janet Jackson sold the place out in seven minutes in 1990. In 2009, the popular idol group KAT-TUN sold out 440,000 tickets in a single day. That ought to give you some idea where wrestling fits into in the overall picture. And as for the Real Japan thing, I don't think there's anyone who could seriously draw right now. Not even Inoki or Baba could draw a proper crowd. It's a bit like arguing that Hogan wasn't a big deal once upon a time because he can't help TNA's bottom line.

Many fans have told me that their favourite wrestler is Tiger Mask. As far as the general public goes, the mask makes him instantly recognisable. I wouldn't say that the gimmick is beloved as such, but then I wouldn't say any Japanese wrestler is beloved at present. I haven't really been following this debate, but there's two things you can't underestimate when it comes to Tiger Mask and that's how popular Sayama is with Japanese wrestling fans and how big it was at the time.

I don't have the heart for this right now, but Tiger Mask is more famous than some of these other wrestlers being mentioned. Whether it's because of Sayama or the Tiger Mask character is up for debate, but Tiger Mask is far more iconic than Hashimoto et al. ever were.

You're not going to find 50 good matches from any Joshi wrestler in 1993 because the footage we have is commercial tapes, a bit of TV and some handhelds. I think you're underselling the fact that her Dream Rush match against Kyoko and Dream Slam match against Kandori were considered two of the greatest women's wrestling matches of all-time, with the latter being regarded for a long time as one of the greatest matches ever. Add to that the other strong matches she had in '93 like the Toyota match or the 9/5 tag and you have a really great year by any wrestler's standards. I'm sure that people who still hold Hokuto as one of the greatest of all-time are those who haven't moved on from 2001 or whenever it was that they last watched wrestling, but Hokuto was a favourite of people in an era where only the high points mattered. A disappointing match in the '93 JGP is just a disappointing match in the '93 JGP. For Hokuto fans, that tournament had an overarching narrative about Hokuto's body giving out right at the point of her greatest success, an irony which made for far more compelling viewing than simply cherry picking the best matches of a supposedly great worker. I'm not half the Hokuto fan I used to be (in fact, I could gladly go the rest of my life never watching one of her matches again), but you don't even like her most famous match so it stands to reason that you're not going to buy her case. People have a tendency to view things as peak or longevity, one or the other, but I'm a firm believer that you have to look at it on a case by case basis. Why let longevity arguments destroy the case of a talented performer like Hokuto? Many other workers rely on a single great year even if they have longevity on their side. Hell, if you listed ten great workers, I'm sure we could find a year where if you took it out there would be a void in their body of work/career. Everybidy peaks; everybody gets a heavy weighting for that peak.