MAY 2020 WRESTLING CHAT.

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 minute ago, caley said:

(Sorry for quoting the whole post but my phone is not letting me delete!)

Don’t forget one of the most egregious when a 50-year-old Paul Orndorff collapsed and seemed incapable of moving and instructed the young guys to work around him and the match continued with him just laying though someone did finally end up stopping it.  I remember seeing that match on TV and thinking he was legit dying while they tried to wrestle around him.  

Yeah, I was going to edit my post and put that one in there. However, I didn't remember the specifics on whether or not they got to him quickly. 

[Casey]

It was like 3-4 minutes after his stinger, and for some reason they went through with O'Haire eliminating him even though the match never finished and was ruled a no contest anyway.

[Elsalvajeloco]

It happens starting at the 6:34 mark. I know there is very much a possibility of a language barrier, but how does the referee not notice something on the double clothesline? She cannot even put weight on her leg. Amateur hour.

[Casey]

I take solace that, in their final one-on-one match together, Nakano avenged that injury and defeated Hokuto.

Of course I can't find that match online, though.

[SorceressKnight]

50 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Some of those names I'll give you but NXT did exactly zero for Drew McEntyre. 

I don't know about that. When McIntyre was rehired, his WWE main roster run had been basically boiled to a viewpoint "McIntyre's good as a midcarder, but his uppercard run in 2010 was a failed experiment". Even if his indy run changed minds, McIntyre was good...but never GREAT on the indies. 

At least NXT made it clear that "yeah, McIntyre could absolutely be an main event player on WWE television, and might be able to merit another chance as an uppercarder on the main roster." It's very little, but it's the difference between succeeding or ending up a Jinder Mahal as champion.

[Elsalvajeloco]

8 minutes ago, Casey said:

I take solace that, in their final one-on-one match together, Nakano avenged that injury and defeated Hokuto.

Of course I can't find that match online, though.

Speaking of injuries... I finally saw the second rope tombstone piledriver that broke Akira's neck when she was still Hisako Uno the other day. Who in their right mind would agree to take that...IN 1987? I am not even going to discuss the absurdity of her continuing the match. 

 

[odessasteps]

Based on their FB page, it looks like CMLL is going to have Sombra on a show discussing the Universal Championship. And they may also have Liger on (although it could just be discussing him with Okamura).

[kafkonia]

I think there was a similar (lack of) care when one of the Villanos suffered a neck injury in a tag match with Raven and Kanyon. Raven was pretty much the only one caring for the guy IIRC.

[Jiji]

16 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Speaking of injuries... I finally saw the second rope tombstone piledriver that broke Akira's neck when she was still Hisako Uno the other day. Who in their right mind would agree to take that...IN 1987? I am not even going to discuss the absurdity of her continuing the match. 

I watched that about a month ago and it was fucking GROSS. Holy shit. And then she's out there taking not just flat back bumps but took another piledriver and other neck bumps and doing offense of her own. 

[Infinit]

33 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

I watched that about a month ago and it was fucking GROSS. Holy shit. And then she's out there taking not just flat back bumps but took another piledriver and other neck bumps and doing offense of her own. 

Can someone explain to me how a second rope tombstone isn't the finish in a match in 1987?

[Elsalvajeloco]

2 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

I watched that about a month ago and it was fucking GROSS. Holy shit. And then she's out there taking not just flat back bumps but took another piledriver and other neck bumps and doing offense of her own. 

Someone really needs to do a documentary on the craziness of Joshi puroresu and lack of oversight through the years that contributed to its downfall.

In Akira Hokuto's banner year of 93, she has a match in August with Harley Saito. She has that taped up knee partly for storyline purposes, and everything is going fine until she blows out her knee for real. Then, she just keeps going doing somersault planchas and shit. Keep in mind, poor Debbie Malenko got her career ended just six months earlier. I never saw that match, but it sounds they let that one continue as well.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Just now, Infinit said:

Can someone explain to me how a second rope tombstone isn't the finish in a match in 1987?

It was 2 out of 3 falls, and it ended the first fall I believe.

[Jiji]

... I think.

Tombstones in Japan have notoriously pretty much always been set-up moves for whatever reason. Death in Mexico, set-up for a flying headbutt in Japan. It took me a long while to not hate Okada using it as a set-up for the Rainmaker. "You just dropped a dude on his head and you're picking him up immediately... That doesn't make sense," was my line of thinking. While true, the idea is that he's incapacitated them and they can't struggle against the Rainmaker. Which of course most do anyway. 

Okada is great though. No sarcasm. He's one of the best. Just a weird thing in Japan.

[Elsalvajeloco]

In the legendary 8/22/85 match between Lioness Asuka and Jaguar Yokota, they traded devastating looking piledrivers. I think Jaguar hits her with a J Driller but she doesn't sit out with it. It was like the pedigree Hunter hit Marty Garner with. Then Lioness hits her with this:

IIRC This finish is like a cradle, a double arm suplex, or some other innocuous shit by Jaguar. 

[Teflon Turtle]

When I first started with puroresu, it was incredibly jarring to see how differently tombstones were treated in Japan. I was maybe 14, and had only ever watched WWF/WCW.

One of the first tapes I bought was an Ultimo Dragon compilation, featuring a match with (I think...) Otani. The one where they trade, and completely no-sell, several tombstones in succession. 

Dumbfounded teenager: "I...but...Undertaker... they're....huh?!"

[Eivion]

1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Speaking of injuries... I finally saw the second rope tombstone piledriver that broke Akira's neck when she was still Hisako Uno the other day. Who in their right mind would agree to take that...IN 1987? I am not even going to discuss the absurdity of her continuing the match. 

Hokuto while a wonderful wrestler was also kind of insane.

25 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Keep in mind, poor Debbie Malenko got her career ended just six months earlier.

Did Malenko's career end due to injury or did she just not decide to settle down and retire? I ask because she apparently worked one of Yoshida's retirement matches a few years back and I heard she looked good in it back then.

26 minutes ago, Infinit said:

Can someone explain to me how a second rope tombstone isn't the finish in a match in 1987?

Japan is weird. Honestly its probably more interesting to figure out how many times a Tombstone has actually ended a match there.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Eivion

[LoneWolf&Subs]

30 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

... I think.

Tombstones in Japan have notoriously pretty much always been set-up moves for whatever reason. Death in Mexico, set-up for a flying headbutt in Japan. It took me a long while to not hate Okada using it as a set-up for the Rainmaker. "You just dropped a dude on his head and you're picking him up immediately... That doesn't make sense," was my line of thinking. While true, the idea is that he's incapacitated them and they can't struggle against the Rainmaker. Which of course most do anyway. 

Okada is great though. No sarcasm. He's one of the best. Just a weird thing in Japan.

Hey the piledriver in the late 80’s, and early 90’s was just a transition move in America at one point. For some reason I was in agreement with the way it was booked as a kid. I used to think the piledriver was a lame old fogey wrestling move compared to it’s brother in set-up the newer, and hipper powerbomb.

Edited May 25, 2020 by LoneWolf&Subs

[zendragon]

On 5/21/2020 at 8:18 PM, BrianS81177 said:

Need some help getting my memory jogged. Seeing as I'm still not back to work yet I have been working on edits for Fire Pro Wrestling World. When I do this, I usually like to do a pack of 3-7 in a theme. Like the last batch I put out was 2nd/3rd generation guys not currently signed anywhere (Tim Zbyszko, Leland Race, etc). I like to do real specific categotries like that because it makes me really broaden my search instead of landing on the easy answer and releasing the 578th different Jon Moxley or Kurt Angle or whatever. What I'm currently doing is "obscure masked gimmicks of famous workers". So far I have done Who (Jim Neidhart), Super Invader (Hercules) and Black Blood (Billy Jack Haynes). Can anyone think of any others? They would have to be recent enough to be on Youtube, and I would prefer none that only lasted a match or two (like Al Snow as Shinobi for example). Also none where it was obvious who the guy under the mask was (like Hogan as Mr. America) and it was part of an angle. I'm talking about established workers who, for some reason were put under a mask and tried to be passed off as a new character instead of just using them under their already well known name. Anyone got any suggestions?

Have you done The Machines or is that too close to "Hogan as Captain America"? Also Lucha Underground had a ton of guys under gimmicks that where unique to the promotion such as Richocet as Prince Puma and El hijo De Fantasma as King Cuerno

[Jiji]

5 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Hey the piledriver in the late 80’s, and early 90’s was just a transition move in America at one point. For some reason I was in agreement with the way it was booked as a kid. I used to think the piledriver was a lame old fogey wrestling move compared to it’s brother in set-up the newer, and hipper powerbomb.

  That's true. But tombstones were an exception, as Teflon Turtle mentioned.

Another thing to keep in mind with joshi puroresu is that they were there for a good time not a long time with mandatory retirement at 26, so they probably were way more reckless with how they treated their bodies and their opponents than anybody else. I mean, they were still wildin' out like that afterwards but maybe the style had been established and nobody was like, "yo, let's work chinlocks and get those back over. I've got some Randy Orton footage we should peep."

Edited May 25, 2020 by Oyaji

[Tarheel Moneghetti]

1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Speaking of injuries... I finally saw the second rope tombstone piledriver that broke Akira's neck when she was still Hisako Uno the other day. Who in their right mind would agree to take that...IN 1987? I am not even going to discuss the absurdity of her continuing the match. 

There's a top-rope piledriver in the Fire Pro games that looks insanely brutal.  Even in animated form, it makes me wince.  I think maybe it was added to the series for Pegasus Kid/Wild Pegasus/Benoit, but I really don''t remember.  You'd have be insane to agree to take it, so I'm assuming most of his opponents said "yep, no problem".

I think it's top-rope.  Might be from the second rope/turnbuckle.  Been a while since I played Fire Pro.

[Guest Edwin]

18 minutes ago, Teflon Turtle said:

One of the first tapes I bought was an Ultimo Dragon compilation, featuring a match with (I think...) Otani. The one where they trade, and completely no-sell, several tombstones in succession.

I was a big fan of Ultimo when I was younger, but a lot of his stuff didn't age well. I posted a match of his in the matches thread from SWS which was built as a showcase for him against Jerry Estrada and El Puma stole the show with his crazy bumps.

I've re-watched a ton of his matches recently. His matches early in his WCW were awkward. He got over later on when they had him turn face and breakaway from Sunny Onoo, but at first he was visibly struggling to connect. He did a lot of odd taunts that worked with a Japanese crowd, but baffled the WCW crowd. There's a spot in a WCW match against Psychosis where he did the Kato Kung Lee and Gran Naniwa rope run for no reason as Psychosis is just there staring at him and doesn't chase him and he still completed the spot and did the spin and jump by himself.

From his matches in Japan, aside from the Jerry Estrada one I mentioned previously, are rough. There's a lot of no selling and just running through endless spots. The crowd goes nuts for them which is what really matters, but they just don't cut it for me anymore. There's still some classics against Liger and Sasuke, though.

[Elsalvajeloco]

28 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Did Malenko's career end due to injury or did she just not decide to settle down and retire? I ask because she apparently worked one of Yoshida's retirement matches a few years back and I heard she looked good in it back then.

She did an interview on the podcast I referenced with Bull. That probably would answer that question.

I'm guessing it's kinda like what happened with Bison Kimura. Bison got hurt in June 1992 and didn't come back till 1994. Then, she broke her arm in 1997 in a match and just never came back. No big retirement ceremony or anything (they may have done one on the 1/11/98 Korakuen show JDStar did because cagematch has career ending on that date and her arm injury was in that promotion). Never came back for any of these retirement shows for a weird novelty gimmick match like Bull did or some of these other gals who also been retired for several years. Just disappeared off the face of the planet. From what I can infer about joshi puroresu, you don't quit the soup kitchen...you just stop going.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Elsalvajeloco

[Guest Edwin]

How fun was 96/97 Rey Jr.? I remember being blown away by him on a weekly basis on Nitro as a kid. Re-watching a ton of those matches and I still love them. He was busting out spots I haven't seen anyone even be able to replicate. I also love him mugging the camera after the matches and calling out Dean Malenko or whoever the cruiserweight champ or cruiserweight title contender were. One of my all-time favorites.

[Ziggy]

11 hours ago, odessasteps said:

One of the worst parts of Vince winning the wrestling war is that the company with historically one of the worst in-ring products ended up the survivor. 

The WWWF/WWF style was very Kick/Punch up until the expansion got going and you had guys that were more about work rate, maybe some of it had to do with George Scott booking and bring in Mid Atlantic talent. The WWE was still a big mans territory dominated by Monsters and Body Builder like guys even some of those guys got to show off their athleticism. Mabel/Viscera/Big Daddy V did cool stuff for his size but I don't think it was a good decision to have him win KotR 95 especially with that bracket of guys even considering that the work rate had advanced with guys like Bret, Shawn and Owen near or at the top. If the New WWF Generation didn't have guys stuff with shitty gimmicks it would've been looked at more fondly style wise

[Elsalvajeloco]

9 minutes ago, Edwin said:

How fun was 96/97 Rey Jr.? I remember being blown away by him on a weekly basis on Nitro as a kid. Re-watching a ton of those matches and I still love them. He was busting out spots I haven't seen anyone even be able to replicate. I also love him mugging the camera after the matches and calling out Dean Malenko or whoever the cruiserweight champ or cruiserweight title contender were. One of my all-time favorites.

He was so fun to the point that it's been hard for me to get into heavier, bloated Rey with a history of bad knees. Rey Mysterio vs Psicosis from Bash at the Beach '96 is like some shit from a different planet.