ohtani's jacket

First you've gotta care that the opinion's wrong... I don't even know what fast food my friends like let alone thinking they're full of shit... If someone said Ozu, Eric B and Rakim or Yoshiaki Fujiwara suck, then I'd care. Otherwise they can like or dislike whatever they please.

Me too! PM'd you. -- Loss, 01/09

They didn't diss Jumbo as much as I recalled. Instead they made strange comments about Joshi.

I think I only submitted 50 wrestlers. I wanted to make sure I chose 50 great workers instead of filling up a ballot. Still don't like the top 10.

Ha, tell me about it. It used to drive me crazy when he was late with them.

Who was Herb Kunze's buddy who shat on Jumbo when they did their Wrestlemarinepaid tape watching?

At one point he called Chigusa the best women's wrestler of her era, then he said Jaguar was the greatest female wrestler of all time. The former surprised me a bit since I thought people were high on Asuka back then, but how much Jaguar was available back then? The same amount as Lorefice used to sell?

Another question -- when did Gordy's body shape change? 1991-92 Gordy looks nothing like '89 Gordy.

I don't know what the source of the story is. I first read about it on Jumbo's wikipedia page, then did a search for it. As far as I'm aware, it's mentioned in this: It's a Jumbo memorial magazine. The story is told differently, however, so it may be a myth. The most interesting page I found was a discussion about whether Jumbo really dominated that match, where they went back to the tape -- jdw style I guess the legend surrounding this match has grown with time.

Eh, I didn't make it up. It was an important part of the feud.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's a famous story, comes up almost any time someone mentions Jumbo vs. Choshu. Doesn't matter whether it was a work or if Choshu was really blown up, since it works on so many different levels. I'm surprised nobody told Dave about this.

I think Jeff did a pretty good job with the list. It reflects the era he wrote it in, and the DVDVR project will be dramatically different, but we have more footage available now than people had back then.

Jumbo was an interesting guy... kinda like a gentle giant who liked folk music and growing flowers. IIRC, he was a really small baby which is why his parents named him Tomomi, which is usually a girl's name in Japan. He grew up working on his family's farm & they were deadset against him being a professional wrestler. It's a shame that Dave didn't cover the Choshu invasion properly. There was a key moment in that feud after their 60 min draw in Osaka... Choshu was barely able to move afterwards and stayed in the locker room while Jumbo went drinking in Osaka... Choshu hated speaking to the press, but he told them simply and honestly that there was no way Jumbo could be beaten. As far as I know, this went a long way to convincing the NJPW fans who'd crossed over to AJPW shows that Jumbo was a great wrestler. Jumbo had a reputation of being the strongest wrestler in Japan, but someone who'd only show his strength when he got angry. This was the way Baba taught Jumbo an "ace" should work. I haven't seen that match, but apparently Choshu moves around a lot showing his "fighting spirit", while Jumbo stays pretty much in the centre of the ring. That's how they recall the match in Japan, anyway. Also, I dunno if this is true or not, but there seems to be two instances in the Jumbo vs. Misawa feud where Jumbo got legit pissed. One involved Misawa and the other involved Kawada. I think Jumbo wrote about this in his book. Kawada stiffed Jumbo in the eye and Jumbo lost his temper.

I kinda liked that idea of overtime and sudden death... It was like they fought each other to a stand still. Of course the finish was screwy, with the Tonya Harding gimmick they were doing at the time, but I'd peg it as the third best Sting/Vader after Superbrawl III and GAB '92.

I finally came round on Sting vs. Vader after watching their strap match again... Why is it that people rarely talk about their matches from '94? I thought the Fall Brawl match in particular was really good.

At least one of the Bull/Dump matches is on youtube... What surprised me was seeing JWP girls on Wrestle War '91.

Their careers are comparable to a certain extent... They broke into the business around the same time. Flair became NWA champion in '81, while Jumbo became the ace of AJPW in '83. Obviously, Flair worked the territories and traveled more, but Jumbo worked against most of the big names who toured Japan. All Japan was often in the position that Crockett was in regarding the popularity of Hogan/WWF and Inoki/NJPW. Jumbo/Tenryu is comparable to Flair/Steamboat. Jumbo vs. Misawa & Co. is comparable to Flair vs. Sting and Luger... In terms of differences, Jumbo's reigns as NWA International Heavyweight Championship and AWA champion, while considered prestigious in Japan, were not as highly regarded as the NWA World Heavyweight championship, which Baba had won... There was even kayfabe reasoning why Japanese wrestlers couldn't beat touring US champions... Jumbo never jumped to NJPW like Flair going to the WWF, likewise no major star jumped to Crockett like Choshu jumping to AJPW (not with the same impact)... On the flipside, Jumbo went into "enemy" territory for a 1990 Dome Show and was so over that he was declared the ace of all Japanese wrestling, which is a type of status Flair didn't have outside the territories and hardcore fans. Japan is a much smaller "territory", however. Baba also moved away from traditional US style booking towards something that loosely translates as King's Road craftsmanship, a new style of wrestling that Baba deemed necessary given the death of the territories and decline in touring American wrestlers. The comparison ends with Jumbo's illness. Outside of comparing their work, matches and patterns in their careers, we're a lot more privy to the inside working of the US business. What we know about Jumbo is probably less than 10% of what Japanese people might know. I've never read Dave's obit for Jumbo, but I'm curious about how much information is in it.

I watched the Flair/Regal, Marquis of Queensberry Cup earlier today. That has to be one of the most interesting things Flair did after returning from the WWF. Was Flair the booker at this point? Interesting gimmick to book yourself in.

Did Dave cover JWP back then? I read recently that Onita and Hamada were both involved in the pre-split JWP, but had a falling out over how it should be booked. Hamada's UWF was actually what he intended JWP to be.

But did Dave really blow it up into a talking point? Or was it a throwaway comment that he should've been more careful about making?

Watching WCW from 1993, it's amazing how much better wrestling there was on Worldwide/Saturday Night than on PPV or even at the Clash of the Champions.

Maybe so, but the information we have about Japanese wrestling is extremely limited. There's only so much you can surmise from watching tapes.