ohtani's jacket

Not if people believe that her work was peak work for '93 and every other year.

She was prone to doing the "ow my leg I'm crippled ---> hey I'm on offense so I'm fine", bad knee or not, but I'm not sure how that equates to "too many" mediocre matches/performances.

I doubt very much anyone would consider Hokuto the GOAT anymore, but you'll have to explain which of her performances were medicore. Was this before or after she blew her knee out? Mike Oles used to argue against Hokuto's '93 all the time.

Thanks, Bix. She was quite the memorable fan.

What was the name of the little old lady who was always at Arena Mexico shows in the early 90s?

Also, you can't ignore that Tenryu is "moving up" because of how many of his matches were previously unwatched. If you look at everyone else in the top 20, you'd be hard pressed to find much that's new. Long time Japanese wrestling fans who followed the scene closely from the late 80s all the way through the 90s (like John) might find it a bit of a head scratcher that anyone could consider Tenryu matches new, just as most of us would find it a little odd if people were pimping most of the top 20's matches as new discoveries, but I think it points to an interesting trend that non-All Japan heavies were hugely ignored until recently. Even though you had John trying to make a case for the heavies in his "Best of the 90s" pimping, outside of Hashimoto it didn't really take off at the time because people were trying to watch all the All Japan he'd listed. One of the things that came out of the 80s New Japan set was a need to re-evaluate 90s New Japan and the WAR/Tenryu feud thing is a part of that, I guess. If there wasn't any new Tenryu to discover there wouldn't be as much discussion about him, which ties into what Loss said about the dangers of the "new is better" mentality.

The increase in Tenryu pimping has a lot to do with people discovering new Tenryu matches. Ten years ago, you would've never seen a set like Will's. A "Best of Tenryu" would've included matches that got a high rating in the WON and whatever else fit on a VHS tape. If you didn't buy a tape like that or have one made, you picked up the Jumbo vs. Tenryu comp and maybe the '98 G-1 Climax. Most of us never had the opportunity to watch weekly Japanese television and were busy chasing down all the known four star matches. Take Tenryu's feud with New Japan, for example. This was a known commodity and something people wrote about, but I guarantee that the majority of people on a Tenryu-kick right now hadn't seen it until Segunda Caida started reviewing WAR matches and Wrestling KO tried to do a "Best of '93" poll, which led to Ditch buying stuff from Lynch and hosting more of the Tenryu feud on his server, etc. Those matches may not be new in terms of people praising them, but they are new for the people who are watching them, and what SG is doing essentially is expanding Tenryu's body of work. With an expanded body of work, people are starting to view Tenryu as an even better worker before. The fact that people are pimping Tenryu is not the important detail, it's what they're saying about Tenryu that's significant. I don't know what Meltzer was saying about Tenryu in '88-89, but by the time most of us arrived on the scene I think we took the criticism of Tenryu in the Jumbo matches or Hashimoto match as the standard line on Tenryu, which you either agreed with or didn't. If Tenryu pimping has come full circle then you can hardly blame people for being influenced by where they "got on," but with the level of praise Tenryu has been receiving lately I think Dylan may have a point that he was never pimped quite this much.

To be honest, I don't really think so. We're limited by how much footage there was in the ITV faults and people's private collections. I think there are a ton of great workers waiting to be discovered -- Tibor Szakacs, Peter Szacaks, Alan Sarjeant, Mike Marino and many others -- but you're looking at less than a dozen matches per guy, which just isn't enough. It really is a feast of undiscovered talent, though. I can't think of any other style where people could discover 25-30 great workers they've never heard of in one foul swoop, but to answer your question, I think people are more likely to say "this guy is like the European Johnny Valentine" or "this guy is the European Ric Flair" than argue for anybody as the GOAT. I guess you could argue that there wasn't that much more footage available of 70s Destroyer or Robinson or Race when that era was big amongst internet fans, but in that case it was comparing what came before to the 90s stuff that everyone loved. In the case of Europe, it's an idiocentric style and therefore it's going to be difficult for people to judge it alongside the existing staples of American and Japanese pro-wrestling. I suppose someone might blow-up, but people are either going to love the style or hate it and I don't think that's the type of environment that GOAT candidates are born from. Probably of interest to me isn't who is the greatest of all-time overall, but who the greatest of all-time is within each given style. I think that argument would be interesting when it comes to Europe and I can also see the eventual Joshi set sparking quite a few arguments in favour of 80s workers.

All those guys who reach shachou level in Japanese promotions (company president level) are notorious for spending more than they have. I used to know a guy who'd always tell me "let's go out with Mr. Inoki, let's go drinking with Sayama-san," but I kept turning it down on the basis of losing an entire month's salary on one boozy evening. Anyway, you know where the money is coming from when they're living the same lifestyle they had in the bubble era. As far as shoot style goes, aside from them mismanaging their finances, I've always suspected that you can't really keep a promotion going with one show a month even if that show drew a sell out at Budokan. Budokan is ridiculously expensive to rent for starters, and I just don't see them bringing in enough revenue on that once-a-month basis.

Regarding Jumbo, I think it's important to remember that there were a generation of wrestling fans who weren't around in '97, '98 or '99 or hadn't discovered boards where that type of conversation took place, because I also remember interest in Jumbp exploding with the Legend tapes. The spread of footage is a big determiner in these things. Jewett may have made that Jumbo/Tenryu comp in '97, but a lot of us bought it in 2001 or so. If Satanico were to get popular from the Lucha 80s set or one of the European workers, it wouldn't really mean that nobody was talking about that worker beforehand it's simply a case that the footage finally got out there. I think it's difficult to make an analogy with sports because the closest you can get is a case for underrated players. It's not like there are unwatched games out there with forgotten players. Perhaps the best analogy for sport is someone who follows football, for example, and suddenly discovers there are all these great players in the Spanish or Italian leagues, etc. A little far fetched in this day and age, but perhaps true for younger fans.

I don't think you can make a fair comparison based on work, but I strongly believe that Sakuraba was the biggest pro-wrestling star in Japan in the 00s. Fedor I wouldn't really feel comfortable labeling with the pro-wrestling stick. At a certain point, PRIDE took on a life of its own because of the different overseas camps that became involved, and I'm not about to argue that Sakuraba and the Gracies had pro-wrestling matches and that the Gracies then became pro-wrestlers or anything extreme like that. I simply believe that PRIDE was, or began as, a pro-wrestling company that ran shoots because they saw a market for them or because shoot style was dead in the water. The fact that PRIDE started after Kingdom failed is a bit of a giveaway as far as I'm concerned.

They ran into financial problems because like most Japanese promotions they weren't very good at managing money, but they also had huge overheads in running their shows at Budokan. What really killed them off, though, was Choshu having full control over the book, destroying UWF-i's credibility while laughing all the way to the bank. Takada may have been protected in the New Japan feud, but his promotion wasn't. You keep saying that believability and realism weren't an issue and that UWF-i was just another pro-wrestling company, but that's not how UWF-i was promoted. These were guys who were supposed to have legtimate catch wrestling skills even if fans were aware that the matches were worked. UWF-i put an enormous amount of energy into promoting themselves as the strongest wrestling company while deriding everyone else as fake. They even did that ridiculous publicity stunt where they borrowed ￥100 million from the bank to challenge all of the top wrestlers from other promotions and paid back the loan at the end of the day with interest. That's how shoot style was marketed to them. That's why it got hot in the first place. It's debatable whether he was a bigger star than Maeda, but for a couple of years UWF-i was successful based on the perception that it was more legit than traditional pro-wrestling. They were not able to maintain this image because of the difficulties they had in running shows and booking opponents for Takada to face, etc. Well, if you know that Takada isn't as good as the best shoot style workers then what's the point in having this argument in the first place? It's not as though Takada was great at pro-style either. That's wonderful in theory, but it's an impossible position to hold. Whenever people watch a film, they bring their expectations with them. If they didn't then producing a film would be easy. You'd just say, "the audience expect this, this and this and then they'll be happy." I can't have it both ways? If you're going to harp on about how Takada's wrestling style didn't hurt his drawing ability then you have to acknowledge that people ended up getting fed-up with UWF-i. I've never denied that UWF-i was popular. Of course the fans bought it. Yeah, let's blame Anjoh and Nakano. Anybody expect the key guy. Tamura was the best hope the company had for continuing in the future and they butchered their handling of him from the word go. Tamura's desire to work a certain way was not a gimmick or business decision. It probably wasn't the best thing for his career, either. If you watch UWF-i (which would kind of help), you'll realise that Tamura and some of the other younger guys were struggling month in, month out with how they wanted to work vs. the UWF-i style. Your whole "shoot style is a gimmick" argument is a huge misreading of the situation. You cannot put in the countless hours of training that Tamura did in legitimate fighting styles in order to make his works look good and then say it's a gimmick as though any worker can pick it up. How would you know? You haven't even bothered to watch it in umpteen years. The reason we keep going over this is because you can't reconcile the idea that Fujiwara might be better than Takada with your memories of what you watched years ago. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by realism at this point. Fujiwara was a more realistic catch wrestler than Takada. That's pretty much indisputable. Yes, one is about technical wiz and the other is about drama and flash. I'm not disputing that. However, in my opinion, one is good and the other is bad. Nobody's saying you have to prefer one over the other. I doubt there are many people who take realism into consideration when deciding which they like better, and I'm sure nobody cares about it as much as me, but watching Vader fuck around not knowing what to do and having shit feed to him by a pretty lousy shoot style worker in general is not my idea of great shoot style wrestling. I blame whoever pushed the style they worked. Hardcore fans twenty years later are not going to care about anything so long as Naoki Sano is having great matches in UWF-i like he did in PWFG, but he didn't. So what then was good about UWF-i? So? Fujiwara and Volk's penchant for throwing in jokes has nothing to do with their wrestling ability. It makes perfect sense. Because you're not consistent with the way you attack certain promotions/workers and defend others. All of the arguments you've used to defend Takada and UWF-i could be applied against your own criticisms of WWE. It drew money, the audience didn't a problem with the things you're criticisng, only you have those issues, you're judging it based on your own expectations, etc. Just because you don't care about realism in shoot style doesn't mean that it's not a valid criticism for others. It's up to you whether you choose to accept that criticism of not, but we're not getting anywhere arguing about its validity. The majority of wrestling fans don't give a shit about Takada one way or the other, but a small minority have decided that they prefer realism over whatever you call Takada's style. Just like a small minority of fans would rather watch Ishikawa, Otsuka, Ikeda, Navarro, Black Terry, etc. than the flashy workers of today. You can argue till you're blue in the face that Ishikawa and Co. aren't that realistic when it comes down to it, but realism or legitimacy in this case really means their level of actual wrestling ability. How good their stuff looks because they have actual talent and not some nonsense about whether it looks like a shoot. So when people argue that Takada wasn't strong at these things, why does it get your back up? You've already said that you don't think he was one of the very best shoot-style workers, so what is it that you feel is being attacked? His career? You can call it what you want, but when Pancrase guys started using their pro-wrestling instincts to make fights longer and more exciting, and the whole notion of carrying a fight was rumoured to exist, it's a hop, skip and a jump away from its roots. Well, it probably doesn't apply to US wrestling as much otherwise you'd have people pimping Backlund over Lawler. You're telling me. I almost died making quote tags. BTW, I watched Elephant the other day. It was an interesting film. If you have time, I hope you can give me your take on it when I get around to adding it to the what are you watching thread.

I don't have a problem with the fact that they did this. My argument is that UWF-i wasn't very good and that was the reason why. It's the viewer's prerogative whether they like it or not, but if you're going to keep bringing the audience into it then you should at least acknowledge that the audience DID end up having a problem with the direction of the company. It's not an issue, it's an argument for why Takada wasn't a good shoot style worker. It's not the argument I would use, but I think it's a valid opinion. It's certainly more valid than the defence that "the Japanese audience didn't think so" or "Takada made money so it can't have been a problem." The matter of what looks good to hardcore fans and what makes money are two seperate things. You can't honestly tell me you enjoyed those Takada matches just because of the gate. Everybody does this to some degree or another because watching a movie is a purely selfish thing. Watching wrestling matches is no different. Everybody wants the match to their appeal to their sensibilities. If there are people out there who can watch stuff they don't like but still appreciate it from the perspective of what it's trying to achieve then they've probably got a pretty good head on their shoulders. I don't know what they're doing watching stuff they don't like, but then I don't have much patience for stuff I don't like. If you asked me to break down why UWF-i was successful at first, I'd think about it more objectively or at least try to. And if somehow I was magically in charge of the book and it was my responsibility to make the company money, I'd probably have drastically different ideas about things, but as a fan of shoot style I'm looking at it from a purely selfish viewpoint. It made money at first and then it started losing money... and when it was on the verge of bankruptcy before the New Japan bailout, Takada did what you'd crudely describe as the pro-wrestling equivalent of threatening to jump on the train tracks by talking up his retirement... then the company ended up going bankrupt anyway in part because they'd strayed too far from the original concept. I think you know very well that UWF-i was sold as real and that realism was a huge, huge part of the way the company was promoted. I'm also sure you're aware that UWF-i's credibility was completely shattered by their dealings with NJPW. And I'm also sure you're aware that they lost Tamura because he disagreed with the direction of the company. People who've watched a lot of Fujiwara pimp him as one of the greatest shoot style workers ever. As far as I'm aware, you haven't gone back and watched a whole lot of Fujiwara yet. MJH has and he doesn't agree with the Fujiwara pimping. That's okay, but you've at least got to go back and watch some of it. I can't remember what Mike Oles' "wrestling as figure skating" argument was. What is it? You're getting awfully literal here, Jerome. If you cue up a Takada worked shoot alongside a Tamura worked shoot (as an example), one looks like a pale imitation of the other. There's just no way that Takada/Vader compares to Tamura/Volk Han as an attempt to work a "worked shoot." It's purely a booking decision that UWF-i said we're going to book this type of match where the goals were completely different from what Maeda was trying to achieve. One is transcendent and the other is fucking awful and that's the value judgement that I place on them. Ask me to be more objective about Vader/Takada and it's clear that the Japanese crowd ate it up. Why wouldn't they? UWF-i was managed by an Inoki mark who promoted Takada like Inoki. It was everything they ate for breakfast. Who says that? It's not so difficult to compare RINGS, PWFG and UWF-i because there's a couple of workers who jumped promotions. Sano had some of the greatest shoot style matches ever in PWFG and floundered in UWF-i. Kiyoshi Tamura spent years floundering in UWF-i and blossomed in RINGS. I think it's pretty obvious that they took their wrestling more seriously in the other promotions. Of course RINGS had bad matches. All promotions have bad matches. UWF-i had a metric shitload of bad matches. Shoot style in general has a metric shitload of bad matches, because shoot style is a difficult style to do well. Again with Fujiwara. Fujiwara was a thousand times better at wrestling than Takada, just like Volk was a thousand times better than Takada. The fact that they had a sense of humour doesn't change that. Guys do goofy shit in shoots as well, if that's what you're trying to imply. He was working shoot style. Was he working it well? If not, why not? What were others doing better? The whole "realism" thing simply means that realism is important to a particular group of fans on the internet. It may not have been important in 1991, but it's important to those people now which is all that really matters to them. In actual fact, it was more relevant in 1991 than is being suggested, but really I don't understand how criticisms of UWF-i being unrealistic are any different to criticisms of WWE being over produced. Honestly, what is this all about? We're talking about shoot wrestling not some back alley brawl or bar fight. Fujiwara was better at wrestling than any shoot style guy bar Volk. Some of the other gaijin may have been stronger in their particular discipline like the Russian sambo fighters, but Fujiwara could've still taught them a thing or too. Why do you keep mistaking Fujiwara's performance tricks for his actual ability? It would be like harping on about Volk Han doing magic tricks and Ric Flair spots. It's fun, but it doesn't encapsulate what Volk was about. You've lost me here. Exploding barbwire or Christ knows what else is no less a departure from tradtional pro-wrestling than shoot style. C'mon, that's stretching your argument a bit far. I'm not going to touch that ROH example because according to you if it works it works and I shouldn't be throwing my expectations onto it. My point is that a lot of people like shoot style to a certain point and it usually involves how close the match is to an exciting pro-style bout. It's not a criticism of those people, it's just my observation. A lot of the shoot style I like people might find dry, but I honestly think shoot style is about technique first and foremost. Which isn't to say I don't find matches either exciting or boring, but shoot style is the one style where I don't look for a narrative and I'm not hung up on story. Then what is a factor in whether you're good at shoot style or not? I don't buy that the matches have to be works. If a bunch of pro-wrestling guys sit around thinking of what they're going to promote and they settle on a shoot gimmick, then it's just another form of pro-wrestling promotion. You could argue that PRIDE evolved into something greater than that, but it folded too soon to really cement a place in the Japanese pro sport arena. I mean, on one hand you want to say that FMW matches and shoot style matches are the same thing, but as soon as it's no longer a work everyone freaks. I don't buy MMA as a completely legitimate sport. I don't understand how a company that had its ass saved by a reality TV show can be an entirely legitimate sport, and I don't trust the Japanese promoters one little bit. Even if it's 90% legit, it's still far more manipulated and controlled and booked than other sports. The temptation to control the fights in MMA is simply too strong. Anyway, this is going to end up with all sorts of annoying semantic debates and Meltzer has gone to all sorts of crazy extremes lately that make it difficult to suggest any support for his arguments, but I just think they're at least pretty close cousins. No, because ultimately they could work the mat and Takada couldn't. And guys who can work holds are always going to seem like better wrestlers/workers than those who can't. And to tie this back into my original involvement in this thread -- matwork wasn't a huge deal when looking at popular 90s trends. You won't find a lot of great matwork in the more popular styles. Hell, that's probably why Takada had a rep that he could work the mat well at all. Whereas, nowdays for some hardcore fans matwork is king. I mean, why do you honestly think people are pimping Fujiwara over Takada? Do you think it was premeditated? Do you think they're pimping Fujiwara at the expense of Takada to make Fujiwara look better? If Takada was good, I think most of us would say so.

Takada being a star had very little to do with his ring work, and John already made it clear that UWF-i was more popular than PWFG and RINGS. Does that mean it was better than PWFG and RINGS? No, a thousand times no. The fact that you're arguing that it did good business is a bit rich. A lot of the WWE stuff you hate did good business too. And I would completely criticise a guy who worked too much of a US style in Mexico. I don't watch lucha to see US style pro-wrestling and I don't watch shoot style to see faux worked shoots. I really couldn't care whether it worked or how much money it drew. The fact that UWF-i drew more money than PWRG and RINGS really didn't have much to do with the styles they were working, but if you want to go down that route then all it really proves is that a less realistic style outdraws a more serious style. Since you haven't watched Takada in however many years, how would you even define his style? Fujiwara's style was a mix of carney shit and incredibly high end matwork. It wasn't completely realistic, but I'm not arguing that he was one of the guys at the forefront of the push towards better and more realistic shoot style. But since you brought it up, there's a gap between Fujiwara and Takada the size of the gulf of Mexico. Shoot style was a move away from traditional pro-wrestling. I honestly think that people who come into shoot style asking "where's the story?" and looking for pro-wrestling and selling and drama are missing the point. Shoot style is an aesthetic. You can say it's just a gimmick, but these guys took this shit seriously. What is your point? Tiger Mask was in the first UWF, so what? The first UWF grew out of a completely different idea which was to be NJPW-lite. They were only just finding their feet when they split up the first time. The second UWF used Backlund. Again, so what? I'm not saying it wasn't pro-wrestling. I'm saying that there is pro-style and there is shoot style and they are not the same thing. Yes, PRIDE was the best Japanese pro-wrestling promotion in the 2000s. The reason I say this is I don't believe there's any rule that says what you promote on a pro-wrestling card has to be worked pro-wrestling matches, and in Japan I don't think you can trust the legitimacy of any professional kakutogi. This is Nobuhiko Takada we're talking about -- the guy who hobnobs with yakuza while chasing whatever idea makes a buck. Anyway, I really don't want to open this can of worms again. No doubt people will think I'm being stupid about the things I said in this post, but to me this is just as stupid. Tamura's ability wasn't some kind of gimmick. The fact that he wanted to work a quasi-Pancrase style wasn't some kind of gimmick. Unless you wanna argue that Takada chose to be a lazy fuck as his gimmick.

No. Aside from the fact that it dredges up the whole Lance Storm thing, it's better to let the workers have their own opinion on who they thought was good and leave well alone. It would be like rating directors based on who the actors thought was easy to work with. The second Hokuto/Kandori match is pretty average.

Those are perfectly valid reasons for criticising Takada. Believability was the crux of the style. There's no reason to call it a "worked shoot" if it's not worked like a shoot. You can't argue that there was less scope for believability in 1991 when there are matches from 1990 and 1991 that run contrary to your claim. Takada wasn't interested in believability and I have my doubts over whether he was capable of it. The question of whether realism matters is up to the viewer, but that was certainly the intent behind the second UWF. I suspect people who still enjoy Takada's matches do so from "a shoot style is just another form of pro-wrestling perspective" and enjoy him as a pro-wrestler. That's their prerogative, but I don't think you can ignore the thrust of the movement just because you happen to dig Takada/Yamazaki matches.

Who is no-one? The fans? Shooto had been around since '85 and turned professional in '89 with shows in 1990 and 1991, so at the very least the workers knew what a shoot looked like. If you mean the fans, then obviously they were riding the wave of the second UWF into the most attractive splinter promotion, which as John explained was not RINGS or PWFG. As for Rey, I wouldn't call myself a fan but I think he's had a remarkable career when you consider how it could've ended up at various points.

I don't think RINGS was a flashy promotion at all. Some of the matwork and exchanges may have been slick, but that has more to do with the workers' skills than the intent behind the promotion. UWF-I was far more manipulative with their points system, was more suplex and strike heavy, used pro-style gimmicks like tag matches, had Anjoh and Takada go around mouthing off and cutting promos on other companies, and was 100% style over substance. Nobuhiko Takada is the poster boy for style over substance. There weren't any 30 minute Tamura/Kosaka chess battles in UWF-I. The fact that they worked with New Japan and WAR says it all, but ideologically they had split from the founding ideas of UWF a long time before that. I don't really see much difference between UWF-I and Hustle in terms of motive.

My iphone gave passe a diacritical mark. I think a lot of the 90s workrate styles are passe amongst viewers in 2011. I suppose all styles are dated in a sense. Perhaps I should have used the term "not in favour" in some thing like that. I think it's pretty clear which styles are out of favour with people at the moment. It doesn't mean they're out of favour with everyone or that there aren't people who think independently of whatever the subculture within a subculture within a subculture say, but things have definitely changed. If you look at the stuff that's no longer popular, whether it's 90s Joshi, AAA, Super J Cup, UWF-I or any other former boom, they all share a common element and that's that they were flashy styles. Wrestling fans tend to fall into two categories these days: hardcore fans who prefer substance over style and long time fans who don't have any qualms about pimping what they like. Hence why you're just as likely to get pimping of Demolition and New Generation WWF as you are IWRG or Fu-ten, to name drop a few of the better stuff around. In the past, there was very much a workrate ideal when it came to wrestling. Not everybody was interested in only 4-5 star matches, but that culture was very strong. Interest in workrate styles thrived in that era, and I think what you're seeing now with guys preferring more minimalistic stuff is in some ways a backlash against that era. It's also a reaction to the current product, which, in trying to up the ante from the 90s workrate styles (or, in truth, find their own identity) became more ridiculous than even the most workrate driven stuff of the 90s. As for who I'm talking about, I'm mainly referring to the type of person who will watch a large cross section of stuff based on recommendations or threads about matches. I'll call these people the "dabblers", since they'll dabble in mostly anything if it's interesting. I do not see a lot of positive things from these people about older workrate wrestling. M-Pro is probably the only workrate style they like, and to illustrate how fickle and meaningless all this is (but engaging because its the type of stuff that keeps many of us interested), I'd argue that M-Pro is only well received because it fell over the radar for a number of years and the time is right for a revival. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that in ten years time people will be "rediscovering" 90s Joshi, etc., but really my point is that if I think about what I thought was a good match 10-15 years ago, my tastes have changed significantly. Loss may have been talking about common elements of great wrestling throughout the decades and how the basics don't really change, but I think that's a little different to reception and the "text" that we turn wrestling matches into (for want of a better word.)

I kind of get where Dave is coming from. From a historical point of view, the fact that Toyota's style is passé these days shouldn't really have an effect on her GOAT candidacy. You could actually argue that her style isn't dated at all, but that contrary to what Loss is saying, opinion on what makes a good worker/wrestling match has changed dramatically. Unless you want to argue that fundamentally she wasn't any good, which I think is unfair. I dislike Takada immensely, but there were stll things he was capable of. He just sucked on the mat.

I don't think Tamura/Kosaka gets as much play as it used to which doesn't help his rep. I don't buy the body of work argument for shoot style but at the same time it's unfair to favour Kosaka because of how far the style had progressed when he hit the scene. Speaking of Kosaka, what's up with Sherdog counting his works in his MMA record?

I see this, but I also worry that the end result is that it bleeds over into opinions about the wrestlers themselves. Jumbo and Kawada being talked about in a GOAT context may bore you, but I think allowing that to limit their case is unfair. It's not any wrestler's fault how much they're talked about years later. And new opinions aren't always better opinions. They are more interesting to read sometimes, but that's a statement about a message board poster, not a wrestler. I think it's important to not let emphasis on being original impact matches or wrestlers themselves. I completely agree with you, but it takes a broad minded person to not say, "forget all that old sh-t, this is the real stuff." It kind of reminds me of when you're a kid and the first records you buy are top of the pops stuff. Later on, you get your first rock album -- maybe something your older brother listened to or something the older kids at school are into -- and by the time you're at college you're into all sorts of obscure stuff. I don't know what comes after that, but maybe a lot of us are in our college phase of wrestling viewing. I don't know that I understand what this means. Less important to whom? What I meant is that there used to be a lot of generally accepted ideas about wrestling. For example, the AJPW heavies were better than the NJPW heavies, the best thing about New Japan was the juniors, and so on. People read this stuff, bought the tapes and more or less formed the same opinions. There were arguments and what have you, but for the most part the lay of the land was clear. This is going to sound kind of cringe worthy, but these opinions were important for becoming not smart as such but for knowing about things like Japanese pro-wrestling or Lucha or even older American wrestling. It was an education in a type of way, and for some people almost a rite of passage. Others may not remember it that way, but my memories of first discovering wrestling discussion on the internet was that you were either a WWF fan or a WCW fan and you hoped like hell that one would beat the other in the ratings every Tues morning. Then when you finally got tired of that, you "converted" to some alternative form of wrestling and wound up being accused of being an elitist or something worse. I don't really think this culture exists anymore. Perhaps it does and I'm just not aware of it, but I don't think there are guys trying to learn every bit of backstory that went into 6/3/94 or 6/9/95 anymore. It doesn't really matter what's been said about those matches in the past and you don't really see a lot of people throwing up reviews of that sort of stuff anymore. I've mentioned this many times before, but the growth of the internet has really changed the way people discuss wrestling. "What are you watching" threads have more or less replaced the internet review site, and the more disposable wrestling becomes the less discussion there is. It seems to me that people who used to buy tapes did so to join a community where they spoke about those tapes, but now there's a bit of a click/play phenomenon going on. Whereas lack of knowledge used to be a barrier, now there are no barriers. It doesn't really matter what the consensus is because people don't have to make difficult choices about what to watch/buy. The way the various YES/NO threads operate is an example of what I mean. Once upon a time, people would be making choices about what to buy based on the yeses. Nowdays people have no qualms about voting yes or no based on how they feel not what the consensus is or what they've read about the match. That's my impression, anyway. It used to be that Herb Kunze was your gateway to Japanese wrestling, one of Dean's reviews in DVDVR could sell a bunch of tapes or you were in awe of guys with big tape collections. Now Phil says something is awesome and we scurry off to youtube to see where he found it. I don't know how to describe it, but it feels like a different exchange of ideas.

Atlantis vs. La Fiera, NWA World Middleweight Championship, 4/3/92 It's weird watching a match where one of the participants gets stabbed to death years later but that's wrestling I guess. I'm not going to eulogise La Fiera too much, but he was part of that generation of luchadores who debut in the late 70s and ushered in a more contemporary style of lucha libre. By the time the 90s rolled around, his body was already showing the effects of that new working style, but he managed to make the transition into "seasoned vet" and remained a useful player. He also stuck with CMLL when everyone jumped to AAA, which protected his spot somewhat, partly out of loyalty and partly out of necessity. This match was somewhere between the Fiera of old and the seasoned vet, and probably a good example of how you manage a pro-wrestling career (Atlantis) and how you don't (Fiera); but let's just concentrate on the match. Atlantis was in his absolute prime here. Much like "real" athletes, wrestlers only have two or three years where they're at their true peak. They may be good workers either side of that peak, but if you look back in retrospect there's a clear crest. The first fall here was among Atlantis' career best. One of the things that people complain about when it comes to lucha is the length of the opening falls, which are almost always too short for people used to other styles of wrestling. By and large the third fall is the one that counts, but as I've documented many times in this blog, the workers have choices about what they can do in the first, second and third falls. Here, they worked in essence a "mini match" in the primera caida. From the lock-up to the break, and the matwork and submissions to the standing exchanges, there was a clear arc between the opening bell and Atlantis winning fall. I'm not sure what the heat between Atlantis and Fiera was, but the part where Atlantis ignored Fiera's handshake and used it as a takedown instead was boss. There was an edge to their lock-up work and it continued in a competitive vein on the mat with great side headlocks from Atlantis and niggly counters from Fiera. The side headlock for all its simplicity is an amazingly visceral move when done correctly and this would be exhibit A in how to make it look good. The finish saw them return to their feet, which is something that drives me up the wall about the NWA style matwork that influenced this match, but this was about as natural a transition from matwork to standing exchanges as you'll ever see. Fiera scored a rope break off a nice counter-reversal from Atlantis and the match was reset. Atlantis positioned himself for the lock-up, but was caught by surprise by a kick to the gut and whipped into the corner. This set-up the chain of events which led to the finish, and while it may seem rather elementary when I type it up, rarely do you see workers link the matwork and the stand-up exchanges together like that. Nine times out of ten, they simply release the hold, back-off and reset the match with a whip into the ropes. Here, it seemed like Fiera seized an opportunity to change tack, which had the added effect of making it seem like Fiera was thinking about the win and not simply going through the motions of a typical primera caida. Unfortunately for him, Atlantis was stellar on his feet and reeled off a sequence of offence that was good enough to be the finish to the entire match. This ended up being a problem later in the match, but more on that in a bit. The first fall was a cracker as far as first falls go in lucha. The second fall was designed for Fiera to hit back straight away, but was entertaining all the same. Atlantis continued to have the upper exchange in the standing exchanges, which was a nice bit of overlapping from the first fall, and Fiera wasn't getting much purchase with his signature kicks (which were noticeably lower than in his prime; something us aging guys can sympathise with.) Fiera's opening here wasn't quite as strong as in the first fall as he did the over top rope bump that Pirata Morgan and Emilio Charles Jr. were fond of but didn't sell it to any great extent. Back in the ring, he finally clipped Atlantis with one of his kicks and that was the set-up for a massive swan dive plancha that they replayed over and over again. This was an unnaturally big finish for a second fall, which left me wondering how they were going to top things in the final caida, but there certainly wasn't any short changing of the fans in falls one and two. Unfortunately, they weren't able to top their efforts in the final caida. Ironically, it may have been a case that the first two falls had too much action. Traditionally, the reason why the first two falls are short in lucha is because the third fall is supposed to be a big 50/50 fall where the winner takes all and both guys come desperately close to winning on numerous occasions. This can stretch believability at times because the pinfalls and submissions often come simply in the opening caidas and take a superhuman effort in the finale, but the basic idea is that the jeopardy increases and the tension and drama escalates. If you pack too much into the first two falls, it's like a movie that runs out of story or a record release that has great singles put not enough songs to make an album. Fiera slowed the match to a crawl by working over Atlantis' arm, which was an understandable strategy, but completely out of place in a tercera caida where the action should flow back and forth. Atlantis sold it well, but it really needed to start in the segunda caida (as Fiera's avenue back into the match) to have any dramatic effect. The idea was that Atlantis would get heat for fighting off Fiera, but they needed to establish it as more of a turning point, i.e. Atlantis is in control of the match until Fiera injures him. It was an odd fall, really, as they both wanted to put the match over but didn't give themselves a hell of a lot to do. The finishing stretch and everything leading into it was pretty lacklustre. I don't know if they ran out of steam or if they were just out of synch at the end, but it didn't do the match any favours. My take on it is that they got the order of the spots wrong, which hurt the progression of the match. They should've split the armwork over two falls and saved the big plancha for later in the match where it would have more impact. It's strange that two guys as experienced as this would falter like they do, but there's no denying the match falls flat. It's still worth watching even if it isn't perfect; you just have to downgrade what was a pretty promising match.

Atlantis/Fiera is my next review if I ever get around to finishing it. There's a Dandy/Bestia title match that Loss will probably want to include as well.

Don't forget the minis 1/7/97 CMLL: Cicloncito Ramirez vs Damiancito El Guerrero (CMLL Mini?s Title) - Arena Coliseo 10/3/97 CMLL: Bracito De Oro/Cicloncito Ramirez/Mascarita Magica vs Damiancito El Guerrero/El Fierito/Pierrothito - Arena Mexico Two of the greatest matches ever, for sure. Blue Panther vs. Atlantis, La Copa Victoria final, CMLL 12/5/97 Outstanding mat-based match. El Hijo Del Santo, Scorpio Jr. y Dr. Wagner vs. Negro Casas, El Fiero y Ultimo Dragon (CMLL 6/6/97) El Hijo Del Santo, Scorpio Jr. y Dr. Wagner vs. Negro Casas, El Fiero y Ultimo Dragon (CMLL 6/13/97) El Hijo Del Santo, Emilio Charles y Dr. Wagner vs. Negro Casas, Felino, Ultimo Dragon (CMLL 6/20/97) El Hijo del Santo vs. Felino (CMLL 7/4/97) Great TV and a hot angle. Hands down my favourite Santo/Felino match.