Graham Crackers

Disc 1 rankings1.) MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana (9/23/83)2.) Espectro Jr., Satanico y MS-1 vs. Mocho Cota, Sangre Chicana y La Fiera (9/30/83) 3.) Atlantis y El Hijo del Santo vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Lobo Rubio (11/25/83) 4.) Satoru Sayama y Gran Hamada vs. Perro Aguayo y Baby Face (4/13/80)5.) Sangre Chicana vs. Ringo Mendoza (10/28/83)6.) Centurion Negro vs. Gran Hamada (2/14/82)7.) Kevin von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz v. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83)8.) El Canek vs. Don Corleone (2/14/82)9.) Andre the Giant & Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes y Sangre Chicana (1981)10.) Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Canek (6/12/83)Pretty damn good disc. I don't hate the bottom 3 matches and they each had moments I thought were fun but they didn't really add up to compelling wholes. I could easily see them close to the bottom of my ballot in the end. If those end up being the three worst matches on the set then this set is looking pretty good. Other than MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana which probably won't have more than a few matches I rank above it, if any, it's pretty hard to guess where these matches would end up in a top 100.That Santo match from his retirement tour at El Toreo de Cuatro Caminos looked awesome in highlight form.

This is a fun match that I've seen a few times now. It's a showcase for the cutting edge of high flying of young Santito and Atlantis with a pair of great rudos there to catch them. There are so many incredible looking spots in here that people have already mentioned and will continue to list so I won't really get into that territory. The other really interesting thing about this match is that it's an opportunity to see three all time greats before they were fully formed. They are so graceful and quick and you get to see them do tons of stuff that got dropped from their routines over the years. Atlantis obviously dropped most of the high flying spots for example. At the same time some of the things they are known for are already present like how Fuerza already throws a great right hand and doesn't hesitate to talk shit. In some ways they are also a little awkward, almost as if they lack the confidence they would develop later. Knowing who these guys are makes being able to go back and look at a match like this that much more special.

The kids love Sangre Chicana. The opening matwork is pretty cool, especially because I don't think I've seen Chicana in a setting like this. The dueling armdrag sequence where they remain locked up outside the ring and have to be separated by the referee was great and established that neither guy was going to give an inch. I just assumed because it's 1983 we wouldn't get such a workrate heavy first fall with all of this rope running and dives but we did. I may love a good matwork heavy first fall but all of the rope running, dives, and feints were executed really well and at a good pace so I still really liked this. That replay went on for way too long though. They each take a fall by submission and both follow up by working over the bodyparts the submissions targeted with moves. I'm surprised at how American this match feels at times. It started to feel like it was getting back to the cool matwork in the third fall but then we got the double pin. I liked this even though it was kind of like a 2000s CMLL match with 1980s offense and American limbwork.

This here is our first look at Los Infernales on this set, in fact it's the original lineup with Espectro. Well, they looked like Los Infernales to me so they looked pretty badass. This is a great chaotic hate filled brawl that never really let up. The first two falls follow the standard brawling trios formula, which is a great formula, and when you have all these great brawlers it really works. I'm talking about rudos jumping the babyfaces before the match starts and controlling things with a king of the mountain strategy while they isolate one guy in the ring. The babyfaces finally rally in the second fall and it feels like a huge moment, especially with the crowd coming unglued for it. I want more of this. You're nuts. His mask has this awesome b-movie quality that I love.

It's hard to think about what to say about a match like this. Both it's layout and the offense in this match are so simple but the performances of these wrestlers and the atmosphere that surround them are so captivating. This feels like one of those definitive wrestling matches that seem so universal that I imagine you could show it to most anyone and they'd enjoy it (except possibly Matt D). Sangre Chicana is an all time great and seeing more of him is something I'm really looking forward to about this set. In a way I look at him like I look at Stan Hansen in that every time I see him what he does just feels "real." His selling almost makes me believe he's really been beaten within an inch of his life. Every one of those big left hands looks so desperate. I love the way he punches at his head to get himself fired up. MS-1 delivers such a good beating and just seems so slimy. The finish is perfect and the way their hatred extends into the post match stuff feels so natural. I saw this once before and really liked it but this really clicked for me this time. If this isn't number 1 it'll be really fucking close to it.

According to luchawiki Pirata Morgan was Mexican National Heavyweight Champion at the time and he had defended the title against Halcon Ortiz a month earlier. I thought I heard the announcers talking about it but I couldn't quite make it out because my Spanish is a bit rusty so I looked it up. It makes sense that they would be matched up with one another in this one.This was a fun trios match though it's also something I imagine will probably end up on the lower half of my ballot. Pirata and Herodes were not too surprisingly the stars of this match with some good bumping and stooging. Pirata especially took some huge bumps including the classic Jerry Estrada bump. I was going to point out Kevin looking like an asshole after he pushed Herodes early in the match but soup beat me to it. Speaking of the tecnicos looking like jerks, it's really weird to see Mascara Ano 2000 as a babyface. He looked much more at home when he was beating up and tossing his already defeated opponent out of the ring. The third fall was brief but I thought the finish was pretty good with the tecnicos making their comeback and hitting some nice looking flying moves (Ortiz flying out of the ring and Kevin flying in).

So I'm glad there isn't more Canek to come on this set. Like the last match this isn't terrible but this isn't terribly compelling either. Everything was executed well and Fujinami looked pretty good when he was in control. The execution of that missed dropkick that hit the ref instead was pretty great. I didn't see that coming. Eh, too bad the finish was shit too. This is probably going to stay pretty low on my ballot.

Man, that sequence that tim mentioned where Canek bridges to turn the surfboard into the pin was really cool and probably the most lucha-ish thing these guys did on the mat. Otherwise this match was just alright. The Mil Mascaras matches on the AJPW set felt more like lucha than this. While many of the holds employed in this one had that lucha aesthetic structurally this felt like a hybrid between lucha and a 70s NWA style match with long stretches of slow matwork between the bigger offensive maneuvers. I guess it wasn't the worst example of that kind of match.

This was a solid match. The matwork was interesting but not incredible. On PWO there was some talk about the matwork in this match not going anywhere and Will said that the matwork in lucha doesn't always go anywhere. I've heard people say that before and I usually think they are focusing on the wrong things. If you've been conditioned to believe that matwork should be built around wrestlers working over a limb to set up a submission I could see why you'd think that lucha matwork doesn't lead anywhere but that seems myopic to me. I think of lucha matwork as being more like UWF matwork in that just about any submission could end the match as long as the wrestler in the hold doesn't find a counter or an escape. I'm not sure if that's what Will is referring to but I could see some folks reading it that way.With all that said, this is lucha matwork that feels like it's going somewhere and it never does. Centurion Negro spends most of the first fall applying holds to Hamada's leg. It's something that keeps coming up and starts to feel like the focus of the match. There are a few moments where CN cuts off Hamada and goes back to the leg. There's even a moment in the second fall where Hamada maintains control of the match by sprawling to avoid CN's attempt at grabbing the leg again. CN works the holds in a way that looks more like Bockwinkel grabbing a hold and milking it as long as he can than it does like most lucha matwork (in fact it reminded me of the long wristlock sequence in one of those Bockwinkel vs Lawler matches). Hamada favoring the leg could have been compelling but it just gets shrugged off here. There are some good looking spots sprinkled throughout the last fall but it's not enough to elevate the match above solid.

Sangre Chicana just oozes rudisimo before the match starts. He looks like such a fucking punk. And there's a brawl in the crowd between civilians. Wacky. The match itself is more of a fun spectacle than anything else.

There's some really cool stuff in this one and it makes for a fun match. Sayama looked perfectly fine here and I thought he was good at playing the weaker member of the Japanese team. His biggest contribution to this match was when he hurt himself when attempting a handspring tope en reversa which lead to the rudos taking control of the second fall. Speaking of rudos, that is one fine rudo tandem. Perro is a scary dude here. He throws great punches and I love his knee lifts and high kicks which caused the babyfaces to take some spectacular bumps. Baby Face is a great base just like I remembered him being on the New Japan set. He and Hamada have great chemistry and he's always in perfect position for what Hamada is going to do next. Hamada? He's easily one of the best high flying wrestlers I've ever seen. Everything he does looks so crisp in this match as well as every other time I've seen him. The sequence with both rudos stooging for him is the highlight for me. And then we get a foul. I love lucha and I know this is just a taste of the great stuff to come on this set.

Funny, I actually just found my Marty Jannetty Hasbro toy in my parent's yard. I was helping my dad with some gardening and apparently I must have buried it when I was a kid. I had the Rockers two pack and I destroyed my Shawn Michaels toy when he turned on Marty. To this day I still hate Shawn Michaels.

I've seen him hyped so much around here but so far what I've seen is good but not as spectacular as it was made out to be. That said, I feel like I may not have seen his most popular matches so I'd love for someone to list their favorite matches of his so I can give him a fair shake.

Is this really all that different than the physique of Barry Windham or young Dustin Rhodes? Is he having cardio problems? Is he having trouble lifting opponents? If no then this is just another case of people expecting wrestlers to look like body builders or Abercrombie & Fitch models.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFIG-2Grclg Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach

He may be shorter than most of the guys in question but i would lump Super Porky into this category because of how he is presented. His size is his main weapon and he is near impossible to bodyslam. The only reason I think Hashimoto doesn't count is that despite not being as tall as Hansen, Gordy, or Windham he works more like them.The way I'm seeing it now these are the only applicable guys better than Henry:VaderSuper PorkyJerry BlackwellAndre is a big maybe. If I watched more of Andre's 70s output I'd be more comfortable weighing in.

I don't think he counts but if he did he's be in the better category. He was just under 300 pounds though he looked bigger because he wasn't very tall and while he used his size as a weapon (double stomps, sentons, elbow drops) he wasn't the kind of big fat monster that anybody other than juniors would struggle to bodyslam. While he isn't the height of big men in the vein of Hansen or Gordy I'd say he worked more like them.

Thanks!

I'm making this thread because what I'm posting doesn't feel like it deserves it's own thread but I wanna make sure that the big Japanese wrestling fans see it.I'm really asking for some help for a friend. He's a big toy collector and one of his favorite toymakers or designers is launching a new toy and from what he understands it is being launched at a wrestling show or may only be available at said wrestling show. We were both having trouble making that information clear via translation programs so if somebody around here can get us some more information we'd both really appreciate it.Info here: http://iluiluilu.exblog.jp/Thanks!

Like I said, I just youtube the stuff I want to see. To me RAW is like 15 minutes long. I'm not closely following current wrestling outside of watching matches that get heavily pimped and occasionally streaming a PPV but when I was following it I watched every WWE TV show every week... in about an hour. I don't know how people sit through some of this shit. There are a bunch of wrestlers I enjoy in WWE but the style and presentation isn't my cup of tea. There's so much talking and long promos are probably my least favorite part of wrestling. I understand long interview segments on a TV studio program like Memphis (and it helped that many of those guys actually cut good promos) but all this talking in the ring ruins my immersion.

Yeah, people should do more than just tweet to change a problem. They should do all they can to make their city/county/state/country a better place to live.Still, I think that's a poor reason to shit all over everybody's catharsis. In the minutes following a big moment like the Zimmerman verdict a person like myself isn't in the right state of mind to write to a senator but I can talk about it with my friends.

I liked Bernie Wrightson a lot when I was a teenager but I haven't read any of his stuff in years. I remember liking Captain Sternn more than his horror stuff though.I read Jones on Batman as a kid and he seemed like more of a superhero artist who was also drew creepy stuff than a horror artist. That said, I probably haven't read any of those comics since I was a child so I don't know how they hold up at all.

Finally DVDVR has given me the opportunity to become Western States Heritage Champion and I won't let any of you take that chance away from me.

I'm glad this board is back and I'm excited for the return of the 80s forum threads, even in archival form. With AWA wrapping up this summer and the lucha set on it's way there's a lot to be excited about around here.

I just picked up the first two books of The Dirfting Classroom by Kazuo Umezu. I haven't read the whole series (borrowed a couple from a friend a long time ago) but from the bits and pieces of it I've read as well as Cat Eyed Boy I'm pretty confident saying that Umezu is the best horror comics artist of all time.Who else is in the running for that title?Charles BurnsRichard CorbenJunji ItoSteve DitkoWhat do you guys think?