ohtani's jacket

Liger is a guy I struggle to find interesting. I thought the NOAH stuff would spark some interest but it only soured things more. I did enjoy the Hase handheld match, though. Perhaps I need to go back to that era.

It's better if I didn't say. I like strobogo's take on Hansen a lot. My gut tells me that because Hansen is such an ideal brawler that folks can't see past the positives and put him through the wringer like they do with Flair, but for now I'm going to rewatch some of the matches people mentioned.

Segunda Caida reviews and releases the matches on a weekly basis. I don't think they're up to the Giusto match yet. They should get there soon as they're up to 1965 and I think the match you're asking about is from 1966.

If you visit the Segunda Caida blog you will be able to find links to matches featuring Italian wrestlers.

I'm not saying he didn't have great matches. I agree that the matches against Andre, Colon, Kobashi and Kawada are great, but that's not a lot of matches. I can think of maligned workers who blow that out of the water.

Mismatch is perhaps the wrong choice of word, but think about the guys who he had repeat singles matches with -- guys like Misawa, Inoki, Backlund, Choshu. (I don't really care for the Tenryu or Funk matches all that much either, but they're better than his matches with the other guys I mentioned.) He had plenty of opportunities to work something great with those guys, but the best you can say is "this is the best match they had together." If he hadn't stuck around in AJPW in the 90s then his resume of singles matches would be pretty thin. I'm sure there is a litany of good Hansen singles matches dating back to Hansen vs. Destroyer, but if you want to argue top 10, top 5, good matches doesn't cut it. Pretty much everyone being nominated had good matches.

He returned to the States in '85 and worked for Central States and Memphis before working in the AWA and WWF. He still did tours with All Japan at the time, but with the influx of talent from Japan Pro Wrestling there was no need for Baba to call him back from overseas. He wound up being a road agent for Vince on the SWS/WWF shows. He mostly dealt with the Japanese side of things while Blackjack Lanza looked after the WWF guys.

I'm not buying Hansen as an elite singles match worker. He had some great singles matches, but he wasn't a great match-up for a lot of opponents. I'd argue that the number of mismatches far outweighs the great matches. Hansen is a likeable wrestler, and my first instinct is to remember the highs like the Kobashi matches and the Colon feud, but personally I think his biggest positive is his style of brawling not his overall match output. I feel the same way about Terry Funk, incidentally.

Did she do much of note after ARSION?

Can anyone recommend some matches where Satomura puts it all together and looks like a GWE? I am only really familiar with her from her GAEA work and that's not a compelling case on its own.

I'm receptive to any praise Hyuga gets, but I'd need match recommendations to be swayed.

Momoe's career was too short by modern standards, though it was roughly the same length as some of the forced retirement candidates who I would be support of. She was a dynamo, that's for sure. My first instinct was to say that she didn't have a GWE-worthy career, but that you could make a pretty cool 'Best Of' tape. My most recent issues with her are that I'm not sure she deserved to win the Big Red Belt and that the match she won it in isn't that great.

That Inoki match is so good. There's gotta be something else. He can't just be a one match wonder.

I'm up to May 2002 in my 00s CMLL viewing and Ultimo Guerrero is a guy who I've come to appreciate. There was no way I would have voted for him in 2006 or 2016 with the bias I had toward classic luchadors, but I'm a firm believer that if I you watch enough of any given wrestler that you come around on them. He was an excellent worker, and you can see that when he's paired against wrestlers like Santo, Casas, Satanico, and Atlantis. For a long time I railed against the state of modern lucha, but I don't have a dog in that fight anymore. I'm no longer resistant to guys like UG who incorporated elements from other wrestling styles and pushed the style forward. I don't know how well his singles work holds up, but the problems I have with his matches are usually related to the booking, the finishes, and the lack of continuity with CMLL TV.

I'm kind of curious how far people go with this. Let's pretend your favorite Japanese wrestler doesn't like foreigners, says disparaging things about them, and would likely treat you the same way if you met them, would you still rank them? If you found our your favorite Japanese wrestler made chauvinistic remarks towards women, would you still support them? Bullying? Hazing? Where do you draw the line?

I get where you're coming from, but if I'm a fan of Akira Maeda, the first thing I'm going to care about is how good he was in New Japan, UWF and RINGS. I'm not going to worry too much about his work in the US or as Kwik-Kik Lee on World of Sport. If it helps his case then great, but if he's not the Akira Maeda I know and love then I am happy to ignore it. If I have a favorite band and I think they released some good records, I'm not going to care if they released a few singles or EPs that I didn't think were as good.

I'm all for glaring flaws. I love pointing out glaring flaws. But is Steamboat being weak in Japan really a glaring flaw? Do I need Steamboat to be good in Japan? I'm pretty sure I can live without Steamboat being good in Japan. Now, Steamboat having weak programs Stateside, that's a disappointment. I really think the Japan thing is only useful in splitting hairs between US workers who were better in a multitude of territories.

One of my favorite wrestlers of all-time. One of the great actors in the history of wrestling and one of the best sellers. That's the image I have of her, and frankly I could go the rest of my life without seeing another match of hers. I feel like I know her as well as I know any other wrestler. Her flaws are the same as every other Joshi wrestler's flaws, though they're sometimes magnified by her smaller stature. If you want to deep dive her work, familiarize yourself with her JWP work both pre-split and split.

There is a long list of foreign wrestlers who aren't that great in Japan. Why does it matter? Are we going to penalize Japanese wrestlers because they aren't that great on excursions?

I watched the Hokuto/Kyoko match. That was a hideous costume that Kyoko wore. I was glad when she ditched the mask because the last thing you want from a Kyoko Inoue match is a bout where you can't see her expressions. The beginning of the bout was more of a crowd pleaser, though the work wasn't anything special, and Hokuto did a front flip that people would hate if other workers did it. This match was during the weird period where schoolgirls were still coming to the shows, and for whatever reason they liked Hokuto and Kyoko much more than Toyota and Yamada. I don't think that had anything to do with the match or the wrestlers' work. They were cheering for Kyoko from the get-go, and later on they made their own original cheer for Hokuto. Kyoko sold her leg the way you're supposed to in this match and then she completely blew it off. Just like every Joshi pro wrestler does. Kyoko's selling in this match was actually kind of weak, but she was young. Hokuto was the better seller at this point. There were a few notable things about her. Firstly, her transitions onto offense were smarter than her peers, and she didn't do the same pop-up selling as Toyota. They could both counter with a missile dropkick and Toyota's would be a million miles an hour and Hokuto's would be slow and deliberate. I could see how that would have a lot more resonance for folks. That said, I thought Toyota's overall selling was better than Hokuto. Where Hokuto shines is her intensity on offense. Very few Joshi pro-wrestlers can match the impact with which she delivers her moves. She blows two nearfalls in this match, which I don't think she should get a pass for, but she is better on offense than the other three. Perhaps that's what makes the ending anti-climatic and unrealistic. I didn't really buy the finish myself. Pretty much my entire feeling about this show was that both pairings had better matches against each on different cards. I don't think Hokuto and Kyoko showed up Toyota and Yamada, though. It's pretty close to which was the better match. I can't decide because I viewed it through the lens of the argument that was presented. However, I will say that Hokuto was nowhere near as good as Dangerous Queen Hokuto and this match did little to push the arguments being presented thus far.

Steamboat's Japan work would only matter to me if he had worked Japan more often or I was looking for some other feather in his cap. I don't have a problem viewing him as a Stateside only candidate. If you wanna argue that others had more versatility, that's fine. I don't think Ricky is hurting when it comes to his body of work.

I watched the 1/4/92 Toyota/Yamada match for argument’s sake. I didn’t see any huge problems with it. I quite liked the opening with Toyota taking on Yanada at her own game and the pair jostling for position. You don’t see that type of thing very often in a Toyota match, especially Toyota having to defend herself after a takedown. It’s not the type of action that’s going to pop the crowd, but I didn’t have a problem with that since it’s a long match that ends in a Toyota chant. I guess they could have chain wrestled for a bit before resetting and circling each other. That may have drawn some applause, but I don’t think it would have added anything to the match. I thought Toyota’s selling was beautiful throughout the match. She doesn’t get enough credit for how well she sells. Would it have been better if she grimaced or sold the leg after the dropkicks? Maybe. She actually runs around the outside of the ring at one point trying to shake it off. If you watch closely, the dropkick attacks are really only short adrenaline bursts. She’s very good at selling the affect effects of the energy she puts into those attacks. You can see her frustration grow with each failed pin attempt and it gets harder and harder for her to get up after every nearfall. The thing about the legwork is that it really wasn’t a focal point of the match. It’s not like Yanada spent an inordinate amount of time working over the knee and Toyota blew it off. She was stretching Toyota at best, and it was the accumulative effect of wrestling such a long match that Toyota wound up selling. And as I mentioned above, Yanada did exactly the same thing when she switched to offense after being stretched by Toyota because that’s what all Joshi pro wrestlers. Things fall apart a bit wth the restarts, and the latter half of the match has too much bomb throwing, but it also earns a Toyota chant from the crowd, and they clearly support her desire to not let it end in a draw. Is it a good match? It’s long and repetitious to an extent, but I’d hardly call it a train wreck and I don’t think it’s a very good example of poor selling from Toyota or questionable match structure. It’s just longer than it needed to be because of the narrative that they’re inseparably close as rivals and competitors. I will watch the Hokuto/Kyoko match later.

I don't have time for people who say they're never going to watch wrestling again and wind up watching it. To me that's just posturing. I don't know any of these wrestlers personally so who am I to judge them? Especially if it's based on hearsay or rumour.

Peruano, and Joachim La Barba as well, are what I imagine a luchador would have looked like working in France in the late 50s. I'm not sure how much of a pro-wrestling scene there was in Peru or South America in the 1950s, but stylistically, the way Peruano works has similar hallmarks to lucha. There are a few other Peruvians who feature in the footage later on who carry on the tradition. I would recommend checking out his early work first. He tones his act down in the 60s compared to his wilder 50s work.

Only four women made it last time? WTF.