It's Clubberin' Time!

[Death From Above]

Every wrestler that made tape is going to end up in the WOF hall of fame. They let way, way too many people in the first few years and painted themselves into a corner.

[AxB]

10 minutes ago, Death From Above said:

Every wrestler that made tape is going to end up in the WOF hall of fame. They let way, way too many people in the first few years and painted themselves into a corner.

I disagree. There's too many elite level wrestlers who haven't made it in, some of whom have fallen off the ballot for a lack of votes. 

[DEAN]

The beautiful and elegant Jumping Bomb Angels against,,,,,,Dump Matsumoto and Bull Nakano.  This match is so awesome.  Dump and Bull are disqualified for the first fall for illegal use of industrial barrel.

 

[DEAN]

I've never heard of Itsuki Yamazaki but she gets bludgeoned by teenage Bull Nakano, Dump Matsumoto and the rest of the gang.

 

[Eivion]

2 hours ago, DEAN said:

I've never heard of Itsuki Yamazaki

Why are you pretending you have never seen one of the Jumping Bomb Angels before?

[DEAN]

6 hours ago, Eivion said:

Why are you pretending you have never seen one of the Jumping Bomb Angels before?

DOH!

 

[DEAN]

I've never heard of this Jaguar Yokoto but she and the Pat Benatar of Women's wrestling, Mimi Hagiwara, get bludgeoned by teenage Devil Masami and Tarantula.

 

[DEAN]

Yumi Ikeshita and Devil Masami pound each other it dust.

 

[DEAN]

Chigusa and Lioness against Dump and Crane Yu and breaks down into total chaos in 9 minutes.

 

[DEAN]

Nanae Takahashi and Arisa Nakajima beat the hell out of each other.

 

[DEAN]

Mami Kumano is as nasty as Yumi Ikeshita.  Mami's blue eye shadow would like to welcome you to 1979.

 

[DEAN]

Monster Ripper in Puerto Rico!  Susan Green holds her own until she doesn't.

 

[DEAN]

This match is great.  Joyce Grable and Wendy Richter lay it in on Judy Martin and Velvet McEntyre.  Joyce Grable is soooo fucking awesome.

 

[DEAN]

The Black Pair is Yumi Ikeshita and Mami Kumano and they pit their evil against Lucy Kayama and Tommy Aoyama.  The third fall is sooo filled with bitchiness, you will bow down and worship the Black Pair.  Also, EVERYONE has a perm.

 

[DEAN]

Sherrie Martel and Judy Martin stomp the life out of Mimi Hagiwara,  Devil Masami isn't Mimi's partner because she is ringside beating Mimi to death with a pool cue,  Sherrie Martel sports the GREATEST PERM in the history of women's wrestling.

EDIT:  According to Cagematch.net's AJW title history,  Mimi's partner is Yukari Omori.

[Matt D]

As I redeveloped my interest in wrestling in 09 onward after a couple of years of not being so focused on it, post-Benoit, and as i started to really take a more complete textual approach to things, there were a few moments which were either eye-opening or frustrating as I sort of pushed hard against Meltzer's star rating/it's dumber cousin Keith-ism/the realplayer-youtube-comp tape mentality of cherry picking matches/the blinding mentality of workrate in general. 

1. Watching Demolition matches in context, one after the other, really by accident, as they faced different opponents. You would never be able to understand the structural diversity in their matches if you just tried to cherry pick or if you avoided them altogether because you'd rather watch Harts vs Bulldogs or Rockers vs Busters or something. 

2. Pcisosis in 90s AAA, not as the guy who would bump to the floor, but as an amazing heel/bully/base, and how rounded his work was if you didn't just focus on elaborate sequences, bumps, and dives, but on everything else he was doing. When you read real time (and into the early 00s) reviews of these matches from Dave and others, it's all "This match had great dives" or "Great action" or whatever else. The most superficial commentary possible while Psicosis was out there hitting so many different angles.

(and here's the relevant one) 3. How broken generational wrestling commentary/criticism/fandom is that conventional wisdom has it that everyone should watch the Jumping Bomb Angels vs Glamour Girls matches and come off of it with the notion that JBA was better than everything else around them, but not realizing how amazing Martin/Kai (but especially Martin) were at giving everything structure and meaning and contrast and and anchoring everything while also being amazingly brutal in their execution. This is an asshole comment, but it also pushes back the tide of forty years so I don't care: real maturity as a wrestling fan is being able to come out of those matches realizing that Judy Martin is the best part of them. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Judy Martin and Lelani Kai were great workers (the Leilani Kai vs. Chigusa matches need to be posted in these threads somewhere), but I don't think you should sell the JBA short. Yamazaki, in particular, was a really good worker. Check out Jetlag's reviews of pre-split JWP, etc. JBA in the States was the Tiger Mask effect, i.e. something the fans had never seen. They were two young Japanese girls on an OE in New York. Give them a break. It's not their fault fans zero in'ed on their workrate during that particular era of fandom. They did the same thing over other workers too like early Owen Hart. 

[Matt D]

I’m not blaming them so much as the fans of the era and especially the next thirty-five years. It was striking when I went back and watched those matches years ago that the narrative around them had always been so one-sided. There's still only a handful of people that would talk up Martin, and DEAN is doing heroic work here.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Matt D

[Octopus]

Your statement on Demolition is why I try and hold context of a match in high regard. I used to see criticism of 90’s AJPW, lucha, etc. involving the phrase “if you took that match and saw it today at some Indy show, would you and the fans be entertained?” Some matches can be really exciting exhibitions, but what makes wrestling so special is the Why’s and other Questions. Why are the working the way they are? Is there a reason they’re mad at each other? Why go after a certain limb? Who even are they?

Being able to see a full run allows you to witness the magic of day-to-day. Does someone change their game-plan for opponents or do they have a set style? The other fun thing to notice is if they work a certain way because of what town they are in.

I found Psicosis to be a great heel, but seeing so few of his matches couldn’t contribute to worthy discussions of him. I think you saying this hits the nail on the head for a misrepresentation of lucha in general. Especially 90’s. It is such a unique  and wonderful world that the details of a match can be missed and just looked at as beautiful spots. It took me a long time to crack, and at times I’m still cracking.

As for the JBA, I’ve seen very-very-very little so I have nothing specific to add. More a question: Is what you’re saying people’s responses are due to latching on to a gimmick and not going further with it?  Like Flair (Who I like) will get GOAT status from people because he’s considered and presents himself as GOAT. Not saying he is or isn’t, but people buy into that aura greatness and will stick with it instead of digging deeper into why he is or isn’t. 

[Matt D]

18 minutes ago, Octopus said:

More a question: Is what you’re saying people’s responses are due to latching on to a gimmick and not going further with it?  Like Flair (Who I like) will get GOAT status from people because he’s considered and presents himself as GOAT. Not saying he is or isn’t, but people buy into that aura greatness and will stick with it instead of digging deeper into why he is or isn’t. 

With the Greatest Wrestler Project over at PWO a few years back, it was very hard to get away from Flair at #1. You could poke holes in specific matches or in trends with his work but he was positioned to have so many "great matches" on tape that it became an almost quantitative exercise. Part of the problem, however, was that the definition of what a great match was, in our fandom, was so tied to the idea of Flair over the decades, that it gave him a hugely unfair advantage. In order to try to argue against him, you had to argue against the traditional ideal of greatness, which is like pushing a rock up a mountain.

My bigger concern in this instance is when people accept conventional wisdom instead of doing the legwork themselves, and there's various levels of doing that legwork. Like you said, context (textual and contextual) is important. The most obvious cases here are Brody and Mil Mascaras. Part of it is that we have more footage now or that footage is more accessible. For instance we have way more easily available Ray Stevens matches from the 70s and early 80s than we did twenty years ago, and while you can see the barest hints of where his rep might have come by, it's definitely not there anymore by that part of his career, where with his partners, Bockwinkel and Patterson, you can absolutely see it deep into their 40s. You don't just have to listen to old timers. You can make a judgement of your own now. 

As for the GOAT argument, I think the guy to question there, even more so than Flair, where a lot of the problems come from a lack of variation as he put on the same act in different towns all over the country (which is both forgivable, but also not mimicked in other travelling champs, like Bock, for instance, so there's a baseline) and a lack of thought put into his narratives (as in he did a lot of stuff that was entertaining in the moment but didn't mean much in the grand scheme of the match), is Michaels. There are plenty of ways to find the cracks to look for in their matches. I made what some people thought to be completely irrational arguments about Flair's post-prime, that in watching old Flair, you could find cracks that stretched back to younger Flair. Likewise, some of his NXT coaching/laying out of matches has really shown the cracks in comeback Shawn (whereas, I think a lot of the cracks and selfishness of younger Shawn were always out there). 

The other element of all of this is a move away from workrate dogmatism, whereas we can, with 2020 eyes, value things like stalling, crowd interaction, and (yes, even) selling which were undervalued in the face of speed, clean execution, and hard hitting without purpose. Basically storytelling over action. Obviously matches can and should have both, but I think traditionally in our broader community, the latter was valued far more than the former. It's not about throwing away those things but about reevaluating them in a broader framework that values other elements as well.

[Octopus]

As a cinema-nerd (hence Cinema used to be in my name) I tend to relate most things to filmmaking. I’m working on a write-up which I lazily haven’t put enough time into about the idea of Auteur Theory in wrestling. Especially, who are they authors in a match (or even a promotion) who can work in their voice, for better or worse. A Bockwinkel is a great example, and how you’re describing Demolition, because he/ they can have so many great different style matches but inherently if you generic-CAW edited their body’s you could tell it is them. At that point you are an author. Tarkovsky films were Tarkovsky films. Godard films are Godard films. Welles films were Welles films. All of them felt created from the same person, but Citizen Kane and F For Fake are wildly different experiences, but the same voice. Bock against Rick Martel and Wahoo McDaniels were different, but it still had those Winkel fingerprints on it. Then you have someone that can literally make the same movie over and it can still be enjoyable and have an audience. You mentioned Shawn Michaels and Flair. Let’s through Stand Hansen in here, which I could be off on. Maybe they’re a Buster Keaton. Hopefully this example works. A lot of people love Keaton because when you watch Keaton you get Keaton. Same voice but also very much the same film, generally. Anyone that criticizes Keaton looks like a jerk, because Keaton makes most people smile. Same with Hallmark movies as a brand. I can say this because I absolutely adore them as a guilty pleasure, have a formula that is specific to them. You can even time out where in the movie a miscommunication  will lead to a short break up and when they’ll get back together to live happily ever after. If you can pull it off, I love it.

This isn’t saying people that don’t fit that criteria have points against them. Negro Casas is a chameleon and can have phenomenal matches that feel so different. They’re all good. Good is good. And maybe that’s whats most important.

Flair was my example earlier, and I love Flair, but as more and more footage comes out we should always be challenging. To movie-ize this again, Citizen Kane being dropped to #2 in both Sight & Sound’s total and Director-only lists (to Vertigo and Tokyo Story, respectively). As a Welles mark I was irrationally upset that Hitchcock passed him. But I can see Tokyo Story passing Kane. Looking at the films themselves, we should constantly be challenging our notion of art-hierarchy. The greats will stand the test of time and if not that’s ok. Appreciation and understanding changes over time. Flair (or JBA) being in the top 5 or 10 is far from an insult.

Edit: hopefully if they do that PWO project again, I’d love to be apart of it. I love long nerd projects.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Octopus

[odessasteps]

Id be more upset at Vertigo being the film that passed Kane than Hitchcock passing Welles. 

Id be more understanding if it was Rear Window or even Psycho that passed Kane. 

But that's for a different thread.:) 

[Matt D]

We're bogarting the thread. I thought about doing a thread in September about guys who the conventional wisdom doesn't match the footage on in September and I might still. 

Since you mentioned him, I am not going to say I'm the traditional low vote on Hansen, especially not in the Clubberin' Thread, but I do feel like a Hansen match, more than almost any other Great wrestler, entirely depends upon his opponent. Hansen is a tool, a problem that must be dealt with. He's not going to give you anything. He's not going to stop. He's not going to hesitate. A Hansen match is all about how the opponent deals with the Problem of Stan and how well they're able to utilize this incredible dynamo of energy and presence. The narrative almost always becomes implicit, where the problem exists and it must be solved. Can they push back against it? Can they believably fire back? Can they create distance? Can they find a way to keep Hansen down or away long enough to even breathe? To a degree Brock's like that now but he's like the world's stupidest, one-dimensional (as opposed to Hansen's two maybe?) Hansen. Both of them were absolutely amazing at selling when it was warranted, but the hurdle to warrant it was so unbelievably high. 

There are so many amazing things about Casas. He, like Bock or Funk, is always in the moment, always reacting, always dynamic. One amazing thing about Casas as opposed to almost anyone else, is that in 95% of Casas matches, even random 00s trios, you'll see Casas react to something or do something in a way that you've never seen before. He doesn't need to do this, but there is a spark of deviation or originality (sometimes a tiny one) in almost all of his matches. 

With Bret, on the other hand, he did mostly the same things, but where he placed them in the match and what effect they had within his matches tended to be different given on circumstance. Christian, alternatively, had a sort of learned psychology, where in three matches against the same opponent, he'd build his counters upon counters and put an extra flourish on how he got into his signature offense or fed into his opponents, so it got just a bit more complex each time and kept the fans on their toes. 

Edited August 8, 2020 by Matt D

[Jiji]

Hansen has a few different templates to work from and his main template is "chaos", so you're not seeing the same thing every time even if he is wrestling a similar style. That is part of the reason why I love him so much and think he may be the GOAT. Been watching a lot of '90 footage and that's the year he's selling his ass off for top guys: Tenryu, Hogan, both of MVC individually and together. Stan Hansen: giving performer (when he wanted to be). 

Edited August 8, 2020 by Jiji

[Octopus]

11 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

Id be more upset at Vertigo being the film that passed Kane than Hitchcock passing Welles. 

Id be more understanding if it was Rear Window or even Psycho that passed Kane. 

But that's for a different thread.:) 

With a name like @odessasteps I respect your cinema-street cred. Hopefully to get Odessa points I watched Strike a few months ago for the first time and absolutely loved it. Another future essay I want to write is Soviet Style montage editing vs early French Poetic Realism. 

@Jiji, I have much more to learn on Hansen. Maybe after we’re done deep diving Liger, if you have the time, you can hit me up with recommendations on his non-Japan matches. For his style, “Chaos” is a great way to put it. He’s such a bull. Going into what was discussed earlier, his being adds so much context to each of his matches. I have no idea if him and Andre had storyline beef, but the fact that the crazed large cowboy was about to fight the greatest Giant was context enough. Before they clobbered each other I was marking out. And boy did they clobber each other. Hansen finally getting beaten up by Kenta Kobashi is another example. Hansen was killing him and everyone else for so long. You couldn’t cage the beast. Kobashi finally harnessed the power to put him down and was put over as a big thing because of it.

@Matt D, as long as we stick with discussing clobberers like Hansen, I’m sure it’ll fit the thread. As long as I don’t make too many movie references we won’t overly [Humphrey] bogart the thread. —— I know how it is finding time to make well thought out threads. If you do make a Matt D takes on the World, Tellin‘ it like it is Thread could lead to great discussion. Especially going further into depth on what you mentioned about Christian. Fascinating.

———

To keep the Fantastic Four’s Thing style Clobbering alive: When a clobber match is underway, do you prefer punch/ closed fist type offense or open hand slaps and chops style strikes?