WRESTLING ON THE INTERNET NOT FROM THE NOW

[Jiji]

4 minutes ago, Casey said:

Tell me more about this. I might have to convince you to make me copies of these DVDs  I want a best of AJW in the 80s/90s comp or a Bull Nakano comp SO BAD.

I realize we all have the internet... but those DVDs I mentioned a few days ago? The twenty disc best of All Japan in the 90s, best of 93/94/95 sets... somehow, someway, I got a duplicate order in the mail. Just throwing it out there.

I think this is it here:

http://forums.crazymax.org/topic/20450-ginnettys-150-ajw-disc-set/

I may be able to upload them to drive or something. Unlisted YouTube may be easier. Man, 150 seems crazy and I don't remember there being quite that many. I'll have to dig it out of my closet on the weekend. But you know before stopping the real hero archives or whatever the second incarnation was, the dude running it uploaded all of the AJW classics to a Google drive, right? 

I've also got the complete sets of those AJPW years. I spent a lot of disposable money as a teenager and early 20s on Lynch and Ginnetty orders. So much of it unwatched of course and now it's largely on the internet for free which is awesome. 

[Jiji]

4 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

* Hokuto didn't need to work an injury as she'd so many severe ones that she used them as part of her matches.

One last thing... This is likely true but at the same time shouldn't discount Hokuto's selling. She went from selling the shoulder in the first half of '93 like it was held together with band-aids and Scotch tape to selling the knee like it was death in the second half of the year with there being pretty much no transition between the two. That says to me that she probably had two legit injuries but I doubt her shoulder went from being completely fucked to an afterthought, so she must have been emphasizing the injury because of the drama it provided her matches. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

4 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

* The most charismatic worker in AJW was Kyoko Inoue. Hands down, no contest. Overall, it was probably Ozaki. 

Funny you should say that cause I was watching one of those inter promotional shows weeks ago, and the two people folks responded to and were drawn to the most during the pre show pep rally ceremony....Kyoko Inoue and Mayumi Ozaki. Ozaki stumbles through her little speech, and the fans go crazy. It's hilarious cause you can tell she was super nervous, but that totally takes the edge off. Meanwhile, Kyoko's speech is like she just did a bunch of uppers and a couple rails before all the girls came out because she starts shouting and then goes "WOAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH".   I totally had to replay that like 40 times. 

Also: Whatever tournament in AJW did 91 that Kyoko won, going over Bison...that probably sealed the deal that she needed to be pushed. It wasn't a great match per say, but Kyoko gets color early on and Bison beats her ass taking 80 percent of the match. Busted open Kyoko sells her ass off, comes back, wins somehow, and the fans go crazy. Then, Kyoko stands triumphantly on the second rope (w/ a sick camera shot looking at the fans on the other side of Korakuen) and soaks it all in while the slow part of Van Halen's "Panama" w/ DLR talking plays. You can't ask for a better star making moment. You just can't.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Elsalvajeloco

[dragonzombie]

 

[Jiji]

1) WTF?

2) Dude rolled through the Fujiwara armbar like a fucking pro

3) She casually slapped the taste out of his mouth

[dragonzombie]

 

[ohtani's jacket]

6 hours ago, Jiji said:

What should I be watching? Are you saying strictly his work in those matches are better or the matches are better? I'm skeptical if you're suggesting the latter. 

I agree to an extent that an internalizing society like Japan would connect with more reserved, subtle charismatic wrestlers and that the standard Japanese wrestler often gets mistaken for having no charisma because they don't gesticulate to the crowd and shout a bunch. Misawa's cold blooded, straight line, winner's mentality is something I could never associate with. Akira Maeda is a sociopath but usually fun to watch. Tenryu is more the understated yet super charismatic guy who could say so much with one of those unimpressed looks after somebody comes at him. Kyoko Inoue always gave me cornball vibes. I don't know if I agree with your assessment. Japanese crowds showed adoration for both groups so I don't think this is as much one over the other but there is room for both. 

I would agree for the most part and yet I think it is very unfortunate for the style that it is the case. However, modern Joshi does have better pacing and more selling than the era we were talking about even if the workers generally aren't as good as those of that golden age. And every once in a while you get super sellers like Hojo. Meiko is so adored around these parts because she is so great at telling a story with her face and pacing things out. But yeah, I always preferred watching Kairi matches to Io matches because one was way more like Hokuto while the other more like Toyota. 

Check out the Shamrock and Suzuki matches from PWFG first. If you like those, he has other matches worth watching from UWF-i. He was a better shoot style wrestler than a junior in my opinion. That's partly my bias because I think shoot style is the better style, but if you want to see him fulfill his potential as a wrestler (not a performer or a worker) then his foray into shoot style is the peak of his career. And certainly not a waste of his talent. When you watch Jumbo vs. Tenryu or Liger vs. Sano, it's always tempting to play "what if?" but realistically if they hadn't taken the Megane Super money, what role would there have been for them? Would Sano have been Liger's eternal rival? Would they have taken turns dominating the division? Or would Sano have fallen into a role somewhat similar to El Samurai or Kanemoto, or perhaps even on the level of Akira Nogami? I have  a hard time imagining where he would fit in. I think you have to admire the way Tenryu and Sano forged ahead after SWS went belly up. 

I think with Japanese wrestlers we never get the full picture. We don't get the interviews, the print media, the sound bytes, the talk on the street. Folks are getting better at digging that stuff up, but for the longest time people worked out the narratives for themselves by watching the matches. They'd gravitate toward certain wrestler's stories. They'd see Kawada as this underdog who always got close but could never win the big one, or Hokuto as this woman who suffered all these terrible setbacks and hardship but never gave up (I'm generalizing, but you get the idea.) When you do that sort of thing, it's easy to build a wrestler up in your mind as this amazingly charismatic individual. However, often they're missing out on other parts of the story. They might not necessarily think about Misawa's role in the match or what is fueling Kandori. In that case, it's difficult for them to see the match from the other side and find a different perspective on a wrestler. I mean, Kawada and Hokuto were meant to be heels. How often are they viewed like that by their fans? Maeda is a perfect example. What do most people base their opinion of Maeda on? Shoot kicks and internal politics? I'm not trying to tell people they've got it all wrong. I just think we need to learn more about these wrestlers and the scene as a whole. 

Kyoko's charisma was infectious. Ozaki for my money was the best seller and actress of the lot, and she could do it as a heel or a baby face. 

I am 99% sure that Hokuto started out wanting to be a Joshi idol, but she had so many setbacks and some many injury problems that it derailed her desires. She channeled all of that into her character and her matches, but I don't think there's a clear Akira Hokuto route of Joshi pro-wrestling. The girls from that era who survived and made it to the top suffered a lot -- Bull, Aja, Hokuto -- they all suffered hardships along the way, but they poured it all into their matches and created unique characters. That's difficult to replicate. Joshi has always been go-go-go. You can find it in the 70s footage. That's the way they wanted to wrestle, presumably to distinguish the women from the men. If you embrace that, and think "okay, that's the way Joshi is" then it stops being a case of outliers that I can appreciate and gives greater access to the style as a whole. I can understand how Toyota can seem aloof, and we all know she drops her selling, but in her own way she leaves just as much of herself out there as Hokuto, Bull or Aja. 

That was quite the rant for a matches thread. Apologies. 

[Jiji]

29 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I think with Japanese wrestlers we never get the full picture. We don't get the interviews, the print media, the sound bytes, the talk on the street. Folks are getting better at digging that stuff up, but for the longest time people worked out the narratives for themselves by watching the matches. They'd gravitate toward certain wrestler's stories. They'd see Kawada as this underdog who always got close but could never win the big one, or Hokuto as this woman who suffered all these terrible setbacks and hardship but never gave up (I'm generalizing, but you get the idea.) When you do that sort of thing, it's easy to build a wrestler up in your mind as this amazingly charismatic individual. However, often they're missing out on other parts of the story. They might not necessarily think about Misawa's role in the match or what is fueling Kandori. In that case, it's difficult for them to see the match from the other side and find a different perspective on a wrestler. I mean, Kawada and Hokuto were meant to be heels. How often are they viewed like that by their fans? Maeda is a perfect example. What do most people base their opinion of Maeda on? Shoot kicks and internal politics? I'm not trying to tell people they've got it all wrong. I just think we need to learn more about these wrestlers and the scene as a whole. 

This part cannot be overstated. It's why I don't think you can do a legitimate GOAT list if you include mic work because that gives a massive advantage to English speakers. We know so much about the full picture of what Anglophone wrestlers present to us but don't for luchadores, Japanese wrestlers, continental European wrestlers, etc. NJPW and Stardom do subtitled promos, which is fucking fantastic, but that's just the past couple of years. Like, I don't really need to know exactly what Rush, Suzuki, or Hokuto say in their promos to get a general understanding and feel the emotions they're wanting to convey but it's a huge barrier to getting a complete understanding, particularly for Japan where there were multiple weekly publications covering the stories surrounding the matches and the behind the scenes workings of promotions and the like. Those crowds were super smart to all that stuff because of Weekly Gong/Weekly Pro-Wrestling.

Maeda's picture of a complete selfish prick is complicated when you watch him wrestle guys lower on the totem pole and give them huge hope spots and even dominate sections of matches. But yeah, then there's the Sakata video, the story of he and Mutoh fighting in the '80s, the shoot kicks, the failure of two UWFs because of politics, all of that bullshit.

We have been getting some translated biographies of wrestlers which is great. Nakamura's was a real interesting read. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Maeda had a tough upbringing. It's easy to understand where he was coming from once you have an idea of his background. Whatever problems he may have had, a lot of that stemmed back to his parents divorce and the way his father raised him. My favorite story about Maeda is how he took up karate in first grade so he could avenge Zetton defeating Ultraman. 

[AxB]

Kenny Omega & Kana (Asuka) vs Hikaru Shida & Masato Tanaka:

AKA the Ass match.

Edited August 21, 2020 by AxB

[dragonzombie]

 

[Death From Above]

I've never understood the "Misawa has no charisma" thing. The best part is a lot of those same people totally understood Ricky Morton playing face in peril but Misawa eating The Fist of A Thousand Finishers and living while the crowd is going totally berserk, somehow they just don't see it. Never understood it. Then again I'm very honest about the fact Misawa is my favourite wrestler of all-time so obviously I am carrying a massive bias about the guy that I will never, ever let go.

[Death From Above]

Kinda funny seeing AEW guys Lance Archer and Colt Cabana wrestle in NOAH for me. Also, I saw Harry Smith wrestle for the Prairie Wrestling Alliance in Edmonton in the very early 2000's before he hit it big. He was already pretty fucking good and was the most over babyface in the company.

[Jiji]

It totally makes sense that an Oilers fan would take Misawa as Their Guy.  (All props to Misawa tho. Recently watched He and Kobashi tear it the fuck UP in '90 in a match I had never seen before or even really heard much praise of. He used Meltzer's star ratings for TP and he never ran out.)

Edited August 22, 2020 by Jiji

[Death From Above]

Honestly, the first All Japan stuff I saw was some blocks of TV from the early 1990's (with some of the one-match commercial tapes like 6/9/95 and 6/3/94 not that far behind) and compared to all other wrestling I'd seen in my life up to that point, Misawa basically seemed like a living cheat code. He was an absolutely awesome force of nature at his peak.

[Jiji]

Dude, even when he was beat to shit and so out of shape, blown up Misawa was still something else, even though it's hard to watch now because of what was so close.

[Death From Above]

Just now, Jiji said:

Dude, even when he was beat to shit and so out of shape, blown up Misawa was still something else, even though it's hard to watch now because of what was so close.

I don't mean to direct this into very sad/heavy territory, but Misawa's death effected me pretty deeply, probably in the way Eddie or Benoit did for a lot of fans. Hell, Benoit wasn't exactly light on me either by any means. But when Misawa died my wrestling fandom waned very badly for many years. It just... got weird for a while for me. I've taken a couple runs at getting back into wrestling over the last decade and it never lasted more than a few weeks. I basically have a decade-sized gap in my knowledge. Finally now like a decade later, the COVID lockdown put so much on my plate that I needed a diversion, and I've been back in deep. First time I've *truly* enjoyed wrestling the way I used to in many, many years. It just took me that long to feel good about wrestling again.

[Eivion]

2 hours ago, Death From Above said:

I've never understood the "Misawa has no charisma" thing.

A lot of people equate charisma and personality/character as the same thing when its not. The latter can help enhance the former, but the former is just something you tend to either have or not where as you can kind of build the latter. This isn't to say Misawa had no character or personality, but its not as big as others so it goes somewhat underappreciated when you are first viewing his stuff and are kind of new to Japanese wrestling in general.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Eivion

[Death From Above]

It's crazy that there are literal years of "KENTA works vs bigger legends but never quite gets it there", as big as his career has been it feels almost like a missed opportunity. Like, he feels like another guy who came along just a few years too early for the heavyweight wrestling downsizing we see all over the place today. Anyway, KENTA rules. Kenta Kobashi rules. This is thus worth our time.

[Death From Above]

Blue Panther vs Villano V, mask vs mask in 2008. There are prelim matches on this video as well that I timestamped past but I believe they're also in full.

[odessasteps]

6 minutes ago, Death From Above said:

 

Blue Panther vs Villano V, mask vs mask in 2008. There are prelim matches on this video as well that I timestamped past but I believe they're also in full.

I think Phil can ban you for posting this match.  

[Death From Above]

I thought Phil loved that match? I'm missing a joke probably.

[Matt D]

This could have showed up elsewhere here, but it deserves to be multiple places:

 

[odessasteps]

It’s a sub 5 minute match, but is there out there of this? I saw a clip ithink in a lawler music video of it.

2/1/85 AJPW tour: 

Ishin Gundan (Killer Khan & Masa Saito) defeat Jerry Lawler & Jimmy Valiant (4:24)

[Curt McGirt]

Fujiwara/Murdoch is so weird I don't even know what to say about it.