ohtani's jacket

If only Ray could cap screen shots. Such a nice touch.

If Rey's lowered himself in WWF, what was that crap he was doing running around without a mask in WCW? Or that crap he did in Mexico before he signed with the WWE?

I'm not sure if I understand your point. Comparing guys working in different environements is what people do all the time. If you voted in the SC Greatest Wrestler poll, which I believe you did, you had to engage in ranking different wrestlers working different styles and working different promotions. So if you indeed sent in a ballot, you're contradicting yourself here. I didn't vote based on who the better babyface was, I simply voted for what I thought the best matches were. That was a matches poll, not a workers poll. If someone says Rey Mysterio Jr. is the greatest WWE babyface worker ever and another guy reckons it's Tito Santana, that would actually make for a pretty cool argument, but I don't think it's as simple as listing matches.

Well, stunningrover, I told you an Eddie Guerrero fan might disagree. I've seen most of the Guerreros stuff in Mexico and Chavo Sr. was clearly the best of the Guerreros. Eddie was never really a "lucha style worker." He always looked like a US pro-wrestler to me. I don't think the Gringos stuff holds up compared to other heel trios, and I don't see how working lucha brawls was a problem when so many other great 90s feuds had awesome brawling trios matches. I also think that working NJPW moves in AAA matches is a strike against Eddie, at least from my perspective. It's understandable if people like Rey and Eddie's early work, but there seems to be an inbuilt prejudice that they can't have done their best work in the WWE, because it's the WWE and the WWE has always been a shitty promotion work-wise. I wouldn't felt that way too had I not watched a ton of lucha lately and been involved in the WWF and WCW projects at smarkschoice. As for judging one babyface against another, Tito was a Ricky Steamboat type face, Bret was a wannabe Gretsky who thought he was a role model and Rey Mysterio has been an underdog. How do you compare the three? There's not a lot of common ground there.

Every great worker is overrated to one extent or another. Take Eddie for example. He had two really good periods, WCW in 1997 and WWE 2004-05. The rest you could nitpick. If you ask me he wasn't particularly good in Mexico, his early US babyface work was weak, his Japanese work was a mixed bag and he struggled when he first joined WWE. Eddie Guerrero fans won't see it that way, but the point is that you can critique anything. Rey's WWE work, of which I've seen the stuff recommended to me, is better than his AAA, ECW, WAR and WCW stuff. Wrestling fans always want to compare workers against each other when often there's no connection. I don't really know how you judge a Tito Santana performance from 1984 or 1985 with a Rey Mysterio performance from twenty years later. Tito was in an awesome feud with Greg Valentine. A wrestling feud. The type of feud that forms the foundation of most people's fandom. Rey is feuding over shit that wouldn't make it past the writer's table on a network drama. Hell, it's such crap that the writer's would be too embarrassed to bring it up. So, I think the only way to judge Mysterio is whether he's better now than he was in '96 and '97. Athletically, many people would say no. Match wise, I'd say yes.

I'm not a big fan of Mysterio Jr., but the other day I watched him have an excellent match with Finlay from 2006. It was a storyline match much like Rey's feud with Eddie Guerrero in 2005. I couldn't give a shit about Rey's problems with Vicki Guerrero, and I didn't need Cole reminding us that every...single...second...of...the...match was about Rey's problems with Vicki Guerrero, but it was an excellent match by any standards. All of the Vicki Guerrero crap was annoying in the same manner that all of the emotion of that Unforgiven cage match that Dylan loves is annoying because the commentators never stop ramming it down your throat, but it's not the workers fault that the commentators can't or won't shut up. But more to the point, there is nothing good about Marufuji.

How can you say Rey's WWE stuff is overrated and have anything good to say about Marufuji?

That's because all Vader matches are the same.

I don't know the answer to this question. I'd have to watch it again. I do know that I like the Midnight Express more than I ever did before after doing this project, and in particular I like Bobby Eaton more than I ever did before, so I might be going on an outdated memory. I never cared much for Smothers or Armstrong as workers and hated the Southern Boys gimmick, but I watched one of their TV matches before the end of the balloting and really enjoyed it, so maybe the GAB match is OK. From memory, it wasn't laid out as well as Midnights vs. Rock "n" Roll Express or some of the other tags they had that year.

Heel champions were only ever transitional champs back then and Vince was looking for a babyface draw. I think it was a little murkier than babyface champs for three years. Either Bret or Diesel could've turned heading into SS '95, but they both ended up as tweeners. Sid was a tweener as well. He was a heel who started getting babyface pops because Michael's face run didn't have any pre-Attitude era edge to it. UT may have been a face, but his gimmick was that he was otherwordly. Aside from the failed Diesel push, where they really put him up against some ridiculous opponents, there was one clear cut babyface run in that period (Michaels) and it sucked.

OK, I'll give you a reprieve

There's a story going around in English rugby right now about a physio slipping a player a blood capsule so he could head to the blood bin and be replaced by a goal kicker. Should've bladed.

I stopped watching WWE before the Invasion angle, but surely it was bound to fall on its ass. An invasion angle can only really work if a group of workers jump from one promotion to another or appear to have jumped even if their company went out of business (like the original UWF.) How can you have an "invasion" when Vince is shooting about owning the wrestlers' contracts and everyone thinks WCW was a shitty promotion in its last few years? How many of those WCW guys were actually hot, like Choshu, Maeda or Hall and Nash? It kinda reminds me of that crappy UWF-i feud with New Japan, though I guess not everyone in Japan realised that the UWF-i was losing money. And at least in that scenario, you had the idea that Takada would take on the world to see who the best worker in Japan was.

The thing about Rey and Psicosis is that it's easier for a rudo to look better because a rudo does more work than a technico. Psicosis was a sloppy worker and somewhat poor offensively, but he had great schtick and took incredible bumps. Rey in AAA was pretty much an early version of WCW Rey -- he aborbed as much punishment as he could take before rattling off a comeback. That's okay in a trios match or 2/3 falls, but in WCW it took him a while to adjust to one fall singles matches. His weakness in AAA was that he couldn't brawl and his matwork was weak. Psicosis wasn't a hell of a lot better, but could cover up for it with the madcap stuff he did. In WCW, I thought he looked strong in his first couple of matches, but they jobbed him out in his first month. Ideally, he should've been brought into the company as a "Mysterio hunter" or something like that, and they could've ran a Sano/Liger type feud, but WCW didn't give much thought to it and had Malenko as Rey's main opponent in his first six months. So, yes, Psicosis was more entertaining than Rey in AAA, but he hung out with great rudos from UWA and CMLL. Mysterio, more often than not, worked alongside crappy AAA luchadores. His best period was probably when they put him together with Santo and Octagon and they formed a kind of third rate Space Cadets. Octagon was such a big star at that time that I guess Rey worked more like Octagon than someone classy like Solar or Lizmark. Angel Azteca was the closest thing to a Solar or Lizmark, but for whatever reason wasn't pushed. I don't think there's much comparison between WWE Rey and any of his earlier work. He's a much better worker now than he's ever been before, which is strange and unusual, but a credit to him.

Sacrilege! What's the highest ranked tag on your list?

I always assumed the Superbrawl tag was highly regarded. It was actually my #3 match, I think. The Starrcade 92 tag and the 5/22 6-man were #4 and #5 and I don't think there's three better tags in WCW history than that trio. Superbrawl is the best of the lot because it's Austin and Larry as a team, which shouldn't have worked but was awesome. You only have to compare it to the awful Steiners vs. Arn/Eaton match from the same show to see how it stands out from the pack.

I'm not criticising the list, I just think it's strange. Our thinking was pretty similar on 1930s cinema, but miles apart on WCW. Your #52 was my #2.

Man, that question for Dave was brilliant. There are some clever people in the world.

The Regal/Larry Z ranking was the one that surprised me the most.

Man, you've got some great WCW matches awfully low. What gives?

IWRG 8/10/09 (taped 8/6) We have a new benefactor on youtube! Los Piratas Barba Roja - Pirata Morgan Jr - Hijo del Pirata Morgan vs Los Terribles Cerebros Cerebro Negro - Dr. Cerebro - Black Terry This was the first time I've bothered to watch Los Piratas, and I must say I approve. They've got matching outfits, matching masks, can wrestle on the mat, brawl when they need to, and more importantly, they've got the right build. Thick and stocky, none of this skinny abs crap. Los Terribles Cerebros have been by far and away the best trios in Mexico this year. Black Terry isn't the worker he was in 2007 or 2008, but the two Cerebros have stepped up to the point where Terry doesn't have to be the workhorse for the team and thus they've become a slick unit. If fact, if it wasn't for Hijo del Pirata Morgan tossing his mask at Terry, Los Terribles Cerebros would've won this in straight falls. That allowed Terry to do some brilliant pleading with the ref and a bunch of awesome finger pointing once the Piratas were awarded the fall, and it's those performance aspects which are really Terry's forte these days. Don't get me wrong, he can still work the mat and still throw a punch, but he's not in the kind of shape he was a few years back. What I liked about the Cerebros' team work here were the finishes. They were classic trios finishes, similar to how lucha was worked back in the days of Los Temerarios. Considering Terry wears the same jacket as his Temerarios days, it's only fitting that his present side work the same way. Classy team work is something that's missing from a lot of trios matches today, not to mention finishes that carry an idea. Watch how well they work the second fall DQ finish. The Piratas were all set to take the second fall, but the Cerebros pushed past the point where the Piratas would usually win the fall. Negro and the Doctor hit topes on the outside, leaving Morgan's kid all alone with Terry. The timing of Morgan's unmasking was perfect, and the look on Terry's face when he realised what had been flung at him was one of those moments that only happen in Black Terry matches. Strong match. I'm looking forward to the revancha. Los Oficiales Oficial 911 - Oficial Fierro - Oficial AK-47 vs La Dinastia de la Muerte Trauma I - Trauma II - Negro Navarro Haven't seen the Oficiales in a while, and more to the point, haven't seen a good Oficiales match since last year. This was a brawl, which was understandable since the semi-final was a long, traditional style match, but the first two falls bored the shit out of me. It was noticeable, however, how much better La Dinastia de la Muerte were at taking the reigns. The Oficiales don't brawl with enough intensity and haven't added anything new to their routine. Fortunately, the match came to life in the third fall when Navarro unleashed an ass kicking on Fierro -- lefts and rights, knees to the head, kicks to the face and head stomps... those Oficial caps were made for head stomps. 911 is clearly the best of the Oficiales and did a cool brawling takedown in this match, but the Oficiales will need to strike a little harder if they're going to make this feud interesting. And when will luchadores realise that you don't go mano a mano with Negro Navarro when the match is on the line? Another awesome submission finish. One pleasing note from this show -- the card was well attended and the crowd were vocal. Good shit.

Sergio El Hermoso & El Bello Greco vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kengo Kimura, New Japan 2/3/89 Oh, man. I'm a huge fan of Fujiwara, so there was no way I could resist watching him work against exoticos. This got over with the crowd better than I thought it would, since there were nowhere near as many gay entertainers in Japan twenty years ago as there are now. There were a couple of genuine laugh out loud moments, and Sergio El Hermoso in particular was fantastic. They worked a pretty simple match around Fujiwara's old New Japan gimmick of having a harder head than the ringpost or the steel behind it. His weakness, as it turns out, is that he doesn't particularly like being kissed by transvestites. I've got to admit that I actually expected Fujiwara to be funnier than he really was, but the exoticos made up for it by being gold. Poor Kengo didn't have much of a personality, though. Jesus. The highlight of the match were the spectacular bumps Sergio took off Fujiwara arm whips. Man were they good. His performance here totally made up for how shitty he was in that WWA tag against Solar and Super Astro. Sergio El Hermoso, you are back in the good books. Sangre Chicana, La Fiera y Mocho Cota vs. Los Infernales (MS-1/Satanico/Espectro Jr.), EMLL 9/30/83 This was a revenge match a week after the famous MS-1/Sangre Chicana hair match, and I don't think I've ever seen a more fired up group of rudos in all my life. Their whole purpose seemed to be to keep the other technicos out of the ring so they could beat the shit out of Chicana. Cota tried making a save one too many times, and the Infernales got stuck into him, giving him a nasty cut over the eye. The cool thing about all this was that MS-1 was staggering around the ring looking for someone to punch, which I don't think he was doing on purpose but made it seem like has having a difficult time controlling himself. The editing and dark picture made this difficult to follow, but this was one of the hottest crowds I've ever heard at Arena Mexico. It may have been the loudest support I've ever heard for a technico comeback, and what I liked about the comeback was that these weren't technicos who point to the crowd and signal they're going to use a closed fist. Guys like Chicana and Cota were at one time or another absolute cunts as rudos, so there was a viciousness to their comeback that you wouldn't ordinarily see from technicos. There were no real winners here, however, and no spoils despite Cota claiming Espectro's mask as a trophy. The post-match scene resembled a battlefield with both sides tending to their fallen. Unfortunately, the match was too short to be anything other than heated. It would've made a good first two falls, but the rudos never got a look in once their ass stomping began and there was never any sort of showdown between MS-1 and Chicana. It felt like their feud had been aborted, and along with it, the entire reason for having such a match. Martín Karadagián vs. La Momia, Titanes en el Ring 1972 OK, so technically this isn't lucha libre, but it's in Spanish so we'll pass it off as a cousin. The only reason I'm writing about this match is because I've never seen a guy play a gimmick better than the guy who played La Momia. Seriously, the guy was incredible. He moved and fought exactly as a mummy should. He even got up like a mummy should whenever he fell over. According to Kurt Brown, Martín Karadagián was the Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan of Titanes en el Ring all rolled into one. He looked a like Rip Rogers if Rip Rogers were Argentinian and had a ginormous nose. He pounded away at La Momia with right hands, but the mummy kept walking into him with big open handed strikes until he could get close enough for a chokehold. This was from a movie, so there were countless inserts of bewildered children. I couldn't really figure out what happened at the end, but there were countless inserts of happy children so I'm guessing Karadagián was the victor.

Dr. Wagner Jr. y Espanto Jr. vs. Celestial y Coloso Man, Espanto Jr. was good. This match confirms what we already knew from the Santo title match -- Espanto Jr. was in the top handful of workers in 1992. Sadly, this match, a couple of other tags, and the two Santo matches, are the only footage that exists of his UWA work, but there's enough evidence to suggest that he's one of the lost workers of the 80s. I know there's people who point to his AAA work, but I don't think he was anywhere near as good in that promotion (an argument I'd make rather strongly about El Hijo del Santo as well.) Wagner, on the other hand, had been in the business since '86, and yet nothing, not even that piece of information, could persuade you from thinking it was his very first match. As far as sons of famous luchadores go, Wagner was one of the all-time worst at this point. Celestial was actually Black Man of Los Fantásticos fame, but you wouldn't know it to look at him, since he did none of his signature spots. In fact, the only good thing he did was a pescado off a Coloso lift. Coloso had the type of build all the technicos want these days and the moveset to match. He did herd Wagner through a cool rope exchange, where he leapt over the top of him and did an awesome mid-air snapmere. That's a move the young guys should crib, since it's such a virtuoso looking throw. The match itself was only really good when Espanto Jr. was in the ring, which is unforunate since it went a good twenty minutes. One guy, no matter how talented he is, can't carry a tag match by himself, so this was another of those half-pie UWA matches that make up most of the existing footage. Can't say the same about this match, however: Espantos IV y V vs. Las Estrellas Blancas This was very good, and a sure fire recommendation for lucha enthusiasts. Traditional tag wrestling is by far the weakest match format in lucha libre, largely because they always try to work a trios style match instead of a Southern style match, but this had all the elements of a good lucha match -- matwork, rope exchanges, bumps, brawling, awesome lucha style submissions, you name it. The heel ref even put one of the Blancas in a wristlock. I'm not sure if the Estrella Blanca here was the original, since luchawiki puts his birth date as 1938 and he kicked so much ass it would make him the greatest 54 year-old technico ever. What I can tell you is that judging by this, the entire Espanto "family" was talented, as these guys smoked a lot of what the other trios combinations were doing in 1992, and that includes the Missioneros, the Brazos, the Villanos and even the Infernales. The third fall was too short for this to truly be great, but they jam packed more well-paced action into five minutes than you'd see in a year's worth of trios matches these days. The execution was a bit sluggish, since most of these guys were over 40, but the spots were glorious by design. They did this awesome tope sequence, where Estrella Blanca II and Espanto IV did topes on opposite sides of the ring. When Espanto IV looked up, he did these fantastic headshakes as the crowd told each other that the other Blancha was heading their way. With both Espantos tope'd out of their boots, the finish was unusually thoughtful for this type of midcard tag. Espanto IV rolled forward in a sunset flip, and held the legs to save the brothers from losing, which set-up a nice mano a mano finish where Estrella Blanca II took a committed face plant off a no-look moonsault. Definitely worth checking out if you're a lucha fan.

El Dandy vs. Emilio Charles Jr., hair vs. hair, CMLL 10/23/93 The most obvious thing about this match is that it's a hair match without any blood. Normally, I'd go on a spiel about how you can't have a hair match without any blood, but I never promised to be fair or consistent with these reviews. This was a great fight and one that carried a bit of extra meaning for me. The great thing about getting into lucha libre is that you have to want to get into lucha libre. There's not that many people who can tell you what to watch, so you have to figure it out for yourself. Everyone has a different entry point and for me it was 1989 CMLL. 1989 was a great year for CMLL and one of the highlights of that year was a lengthy feud between El Dandy and a rudo named Emilio Charles Jr. Emilio was a guy I'd never heard of before, since to this very day he doesn't have a big rep as a worker, but watching those '89 tapes it struck me that Emilio was every bit the worker that Dandy was. Guys like Steve Sims or Kurt Brown, who were lucky enough to watch CMLL in the 80s, point to Pirata Morgan, La Fiera, Negro Casas or Jerry Estrada as workrate guys, but if you watch something like Emilio Charles Jr. vs. Atlantis from '84, you'll see that Emilio was pushing the envelope as much as any of those guys. According to Jose, he was put into Los Destructores to learn the ropes, but if you ask me, CMLL had a diamond in the rough. Dandy's star continued to rise in 1990 and Emilio settled back into trios wrestling. This wasn't that uncommon in the late 80s/early 90s. A guy like Satanico would bide his time in trios until the bookers were ready to use him for another mainevent run. This was how CMLL were able to book so many different hair and title matches, and for the most part it was a successful formula. Somewhere along the way, however, Emilio's body began to break down. I don't know the full story, or if there's even a story, but he was a huge bumper in trios and had a fondness for that high arcing bump over the top rope that Pirata Morgan was so famous for. What I didn't realise until recently is that CMLL brought back the Dandy vs. Emilio feud in a down year. The chance to see a competitive Emilio Charles Jr. match in 1993 was a complete bonus for me. Dandy came to the ring to a remix of I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred that had the lyrics "soy un sexy luchador." Sometimes the down years are greater than the boom years. Emilio had his Andre the Giant hair going on here. His ability to grow his hair out was rivaled only by Mocho Cota. Cota was unbelievable at preparing for hair matches. Seriously, the guy would go from looking like like Shakespearean villain to Dr J in a matter of weeks. The opening fall was pretty standard. There were a number of spots where usually the blood would flow, but for whatever reason Dandy didn't blade. There was plenty of niggle, however. Emilio pulled Dandy's hair in the ropes and straight out of the break Dandy fingered him in the eyes. Emilio won the first fall with the type of simple move that I know bothers a lot of people about lucha, but you have to get into Emilio taunting the crowd to appreciate these type of matches. His fist pumping, chest beating, fnger pointing taunt told the crowd in no uncertain terms who the man was in that fall. The second fall was likewise nothing special, with Dandy taking the most direct approach available to him, which mostly consisted of punching and kneeing Emilio in the face. Dandy did a good job of selling the work Emilio had done on his back, but there was nothing in it in the first two falls. Dandy's crucifix pin to win the fall was beautiful (especially on the replay), and the tone was set a winner takes all third fall. The third fall wasn't the greatest contest I've seen in lucha, but you have to remember how broken down Emilio was by this point. The best parts of this fall came across as a high-end title match and Emilio's selling was fantastic. There was one stretch where Dandy had Emilio in a headlock and it truly looked like Emilio was struggling to breath. The vicious elbow he gave Dandy to break the hold complemented the vibe he was giving off and his selling of Dandy's figure four leglock bordered on the sublime. It didn't matter how slow Emilio had become, he was one tough bastard and the match kicked into high gear when he tope'd Dandy into the second row. The transitions were rough as guts, but so was CMLL in 1993. What I loved about this fall is that both guys wanted the win and they fought to the bitter end. And Emilio fucking won!! I wasn't expecting that at all. How awesome is that? Dandy went for La magistral and Emilio low blowed him while he was in the armbar. He clotheslined Dandy from behind and applied a crucifix pin of his own. Such a brilliant finish. The instant he low blowed Dandy the crowd were aghast. There was a rudo fan sitting in the front row and on the replay you could see that photographers were blocking his view. He sat forward as the ref began to count, and as soon as that hand came down for a third time, he lept into the air and rang his bell for all the arena to hear. Other fans looked like they wanted to rip their tickets up. So there you have it. A competitive Emilio Charles Jr. match in 1993. Maybe not worth its weight in gold, but there really aren't that many great Dandy matches after the Casas feud, so like I said at the top -- it's a bonus.

Pentagon, or at least the guy who played him (Espanto Jr.), was also a really great worker. That's one of my favourite AAA trios.