Questions about Puroresu!

[Guest JHawk]

I think I summed Baba up best in my review of AWA Wrestlerock 86 on www.thesmartmarks.com. In it, I described Baba thusly:

 

The late Baba, accompanied here by the Great Kojima, has to be the most overrated wrestler in the world. Ever. His style's slow, he's about 7'4" and 100 pounds (well, 316 pounds), and yet somehow he managed to become a Japanese legend and three time NWA World Champion. I'd assume he kissed Rikidozan's ass but Rikidozan was dead before Baba ever got started in the business.

 

The last sentence is false, of course, as Baba debuted in 1960 and Rikidozan died in 1963, if I'm not mistaken, so it's quite possible that he did, in fact, kiss Rikidozan's ass to get his initial push. But I have never seen Baba in a good singles match. Ever. Granted, I haven't seen as much of his stuff as some others, but from what I have seen, occasionally a tag match creeps in that is decent. Not always though, as anybody who has ever seen Andre/Baba vs. Demolition will attest to.

 

Baba did get over in large part because of his size, and if he had been 20 years younger I'm sure Vince McMahon would have pushed him to feud with The Undertaker in the United States in the early 90s. But I'd recommend you avoid his singles matches at all costs because they're not that good.

[Guest wolverine]

Baba has always been said in recent years to have been 209 centimeters tall (6-10 1/4). He had been measured on games shows, wearing big shoes, to be that height. He's probably closer to 6-8 1/2 or 6-9, as he was slightly shorter than Ernie Ladd when they wrestled each other in the 70's. In their many photos together both before and after they became a regular gimmick tag team as a way to prolong Andre's career when he could barely walk, Baba appeared to be an inch or two shorter than Andre, who was probably legitimately 6-9 or 6-10 (as a team in the ring Baba appeared taller, but that's because Baba always stood upright and Andre by this point was badly hunched), but Andre always wore big lifts in his wrestling boots to give the illusion of being taller than he actually was while Baba didn't.--Excerpt from 2/15/99 Wrestling Observer Newsletter