Best Foreign for a fan expanding their horizons

[Guest converge241]

Ive been an American wrestling fan for 17 years and follow Japaneese and Mexican news and results on the 'net and the Observer.

Im interested in getting more into some of the foreign, Japaneese in particular but also interested in Mexico, wrestling and have more "funny money" at my disposal to start getting some tapes.

If some of the experts could give their opinions on what their personal faves are and sources to get tapes, I'd love to hear em. Im not cluless about the feds so i dont need total breakdowns but if you want to provide em feel free it might get some other fans into some different stuff.

Im going to look at the consensus and add that with my own opinions and start getting into the foreign market.

Thanks in advance.

[Guest dawho5]

Well, I would say to go by your preferences in American wrestling.  If you liked the high flying cruiserweights of WCW, get into some lucharesu, juniors, or lucha libre.  If you were into the heavyweights more, look at getting more AJPW or some of the NJPW that is weighted more towards heavyweights.  Otherwise, just do a lot of comps that cover a lot of different wrestlers.  It's easy to pick out the westlers you like and want to see more of that way.

[Guest Odyssey Wing]

if i were u, i would try and get my hands on lucha or junior stuff

if u undertand the style of puro heavyweights, then go for heavyweight stuff like AJPW, but stuff like Toryumon or T2P (lucharesu) are always safe if u dont know what u want to get (they r always entertaining).

[Guest razazteca]

Lucha Libre is very entertaining but stick to the stars that you seen from WCW WWF just to understand the style then venture into CMLL and AAA PPVs and try to watch Galavision if you can, the minis are better than you think.

 

there is a review of When Worlds Collide on the main site somewhere.

[Guest Hoyakillah]

First of all, I'd recommend watching some of the better-known foreign stars when they're working in the States.  This is far easier for juniors work than it is for the heavies (at least the All Japan heavies - the New Japan ones didn't deliver so much when they were working here as heavies).  So if you're thinking about lucha, watch WCW Halloween Havoc '97 or BATB '96 (Psic v. Rey) just to get your first bearings on the stuff.  If you're getting into New Japan juniors, go with some of the 1992 work that Lyger, Pillman, Benoit et al did in WCW.  M-Pro?  You can't go wrong with Sasuke v. TAKA from WWF in 1997, or the M-Pro six man on ECW Barely Legal 1997.

 

As for the All Japan heavies, who are often considered the best wrestlers in the world, I don't know that I could recommend a specific tape for you.  So here's what you do.  You contact Jeff Lynch (his email address should be in the pinned topic at top).  You get him to make you an AJPW comp - if you've got your funny money, it won't be too much, so splurge on it.  And make sure to include the following four matches:

 

Misawa v. Tsuruta, 6.8.1990 - the start of the 1990s AJPW revolution

Misawa v. Kawada 6.3.1994 - greatest singles match of all time

Misawa/Kobashi v. Kawada/Taue 6.9.1995 - greatest tag match of all time

Misawa v. Kobashi 1.20.1997 - the end of the golden age in AJPW heavies

 

you'll note that Misawa is in all four matches... I tend to be a Kawada mark myself (despite the icon) but Misawa can be easier to get into.  If you want some goodness, then load up on Kawada matches for the rest of it, or even just have Lynch load it up for you - I'm sure he knows what's good.

 

So what I would do if I were you is get five tapes.  Get AAA/WWC When Worlds Collide from 1994 - it's the best possible intro to lucha, and the commentary is in English (bonus).  Get a comp from Lynch to cover AJPW heavies.  Get the Super J-Cup 1994 (generally considered to be the intro to puro).  Get the J-Crown from 1996 - I personally prefer it to J-Cup 1994, they're both GOLDEN.  And get a Michinoku Pro tape... probably These Days from 1996, but I'm not an M-Pro expert.

 

And ask Chris Coey if you want to get into joshi.

[Guest Luke Argyle]

I'd recommend watching some of the better-known foreign stars when they're working in the States.  This is far easier for juniors work than it is for the heavies (at least the All Japan heavies - the New Japan ones didn't deliver so much when they were working here as heavies).  So if you're thinking about lucha, watch WCW Halloween Havoc '97 or BATB '96 (Psic v. Rey) just to get your first bearings on the stuff.  If you're getting into New Japan juniors, go with some of the 1992 work that Lyger, Pillman, Benoit et al did in WCW.  M-Pro?  You can't go wrong with Sasuke v. TAKA from WWF in 1997, or the M-Pro six man on ECW Barely Legal 1997.

 

This is a good point.  Say what you will about ECW, but if it wasn't for Heatwave '98, I may have never said "hey, who the hell are Hayabusa and Shinzaki" and gotten the plethora of FMW tapes.  It may not have been the greatest place to start, but it gave me a certain frame of reference.  Same goes for Misato Tanaka and my distant memories of Ultimo Dragon and Yuji Nagata in WCW.  

 

And ask Chris Coey if you want to get into joshi.

 

Especially if you are interested in Mariko Yoshida.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around some of the matwork I've seen her pull out of her magic hat.  Mindblowing.

[Guest Jubuki]

I must say I'm far more of a Hokuto apologist than I am one for Mariko...for the most part, snazzy matwork is its own allure.  Revealing Hokuto's transformation into the epitome -- and biggest victim -- of AJW is a mite trickier.

 

But, I think a good way to start is to grab up maybe 2 shows/tapes of each style.  Being the complete-match freak I am, and being the "don't get the best right away" freak I am, my recommendations would be something like this...

 

AJPW:

 

1) There's a pretty common block of AJ TV that's floating around: the 8/2/93 - 9/6/93 series, which is 6 weeks of Nippon TV shows.  Chris Tabar has it; he's probably where I'd get it, if I didn't already have it.  A whole lot of great stuff therein, though it's stuff that's mostly self-contained: you don't have to understand as many nuances of the promotion to enjoy the top matches.

 

2) The 1996 Super Power (May/June) series commercial tape is a short (3 matches) tape that's very, very good - one of their best.  Again, it gives a pretty good overview of how good they were, just as they were beginning to decline, but it doesn't leave one disappointed if/when one sees other tapes.

 

NJPW:

 

New Japan is a tougher nut to crack - there's obvious stuff like Super J-Cup to get...but it falls into the "best" category with its main.  I think, if I had to pick up their stuff, I'd go after the TV again, with these picks:

 

1) 1/96-3/30/96 TV: This covers a couple of damn fine matches - the much-hyped 3/17/96 Liger/Ohtani, and the recently-much-hyped 1/21/96 Ohtani/Samurai match.  Both are great for seeing how wonderful all 3 were; Sammy and Liger were superb at finding a middle ground between the solidity of Dynamite Kid and the flash of Tiger Mask, and Ohtani was, for a while there, looking like he'd be better than any of those guys.

 

2) For the heavies, the 8/19 - 9/16/95 run is something else.  Chono showed up for some good matches, Koshinaka looked like the lost really good worker of the decade, Norton was totally carry-able, Tenzan and Sasaki were watchable at a time when neither was very good, and Mutoh & Hashimoto were super-primed for locking horns and deciding who the Man was.  Flair is just kinda there, but he's a good contrast in terms of how the others could work, whereas he was still allegedly a "great" worker but was outperformed every time.

 

Lucha

 

I'm not really the person to ask about Lucha - historically, I know jack shit about it...but I know what I like.  From CMLL, the Villano 3/Atlantis mask match from 3/17/00 is worth seeing, the Santo/Casas vs. Bucanero/Ultimo Guerrero tag match from 12/00 is damn fine (so is the 11/01 rematch), and a couple of the trios matches from the 3/30/01 PPV are good to great.  I know much less about AAA...really anything outside of a couple of feuds.  But, I'm rectifying that.

 

Lucharesu

 

'96 MPro is the way to go - I'd probably get the 3/96 comm and the 12/96 comm...or the 3/96 comm and the TV block that covers 12/96.  Really, all 3 are worth it.  The 12/16/96 10-man is probably my favorite of their glory days.  In comparison, Toryumon looks almost amateurish.

 

Shootstyle

 

Just to clarify, BattlARTS isn't shootstyle - it's just pro-wrestling.  Shootstyle is UWF/i and RINGS: from that stuff, I'd grab the 10/14/94 UWFi, which has a wicked Takada/Sano match, and I'd get the 8/13/89 UWF show, which has Yoshiaki Fujiwara in one of the smartest "this guy could really hurt me, so what do I need to do to keep from getting murdered" matches I've ever seen.

 

Joshi

 

There's lots of good Joshi out there to get...I'll recommend 2 oddballs no one else would dream up...

 

1) Japan Grand Prix Finals 8/30/92 - There's something like 4 very good to great matches on this.  Yoshida steps it up in 2 matches and does fun stuff against Kyoko & Toyota, Yamada and Kong have an asskicking contest, and the Hokuto vs. Bull feud comes to something of an end in a fantastic trios match.  Seeing LCO all together in this setting sort of plays into this...

 

2) Arashi no Kaisen: Zenjo vs. LLPW 1/24/93 - The undercard, like much of the comms of the time, is full of bad rookie stuff, but this is as representative of what was going on in AJW at the time as any tape I've seen.  It's got stuff that's fun, stuff that looks like it might turn out well but ends up disappointing, stuff that's flat-out worth skipping, and then a couple of neat-as-fuck double main events.  The LCO vs. LLPW match is Why Hokuto Fans Love Hokuto: the hate, the defiance, the strength and the violence.  So much attitude that an unspectacularly-worked 25-minute match absolutely soars by.  Plus, you get to see Shinobu "Kruschev" Kandori at the end of it, just like in her Dream Slam press conference after Hokuto throws water on her.  Good fun.

[Guest Hoyakillah]

Now, here's a tangential question which I think is actually rather pertinent here...

 

Let's say you're getting into AJPW (King's Road, if you will) heavyweight style, which is arguably the hardest for American fans to get into because of the lack of exposure relative to other styles.  The only other style I'd say is as hard to get into is joshi - I mean, lucharesu, lucha, NJPW-style heavies and NJPW-junior has all been featured on American TV at some point, be it WCW, WWF, or ECW.  I'm not a joshi-head, so sticking with AJPW... what do you start with?  I mean, Dean Rasmussen swears by starting with Misawa/Tsuruta 6.8.1990, and going from there... other people I've talked to swear by Misawa/Kobashi 1.20.1997, because it's the most "spoteriffic" match (which is actually points off in my book).  I personally started with Misawa/Kawada 6.3.1994, and while I was missing something by not knowing background beforehand, I did my obligatory reading of the DVDVR beforehand and got a grasp of the storyline... and like someone said elsewhere on this board, after that match I never looked back.  But anyway, I ramble... where to start with AJPW?  And by extension, are there American matches which can be watched as some sort of corollary to King's Road?  I can't think of any off the top of my head - perhaps the Benoit/Austin match from the Smackdown in Edmonton, but even that... I dunno, maybe Flair/Steamboat?  Perhaps you have to go back to the glory days of the Miracle Violence Connection, etc.  Thoughts?

[Guest Tim Cooke]

"And by extension, are there American matches which can be watched as some sort of corollary to King's Road?"

 

Good question.  There are a few paths I would point people to in regards of starting with the AJPW.

 

The first path would involve the Flair and Steamboat 1989 series.  Most people who are willing to give Puro a shot tend to like these matches as even at their worst, they are still high quality for the US in the late 80's.  I would then siggest that they pick up the Tsuruta v Tenyru tape that is floating around (TABE has it and I think Mailman has the original, though he is MIA).  Compare and contrast the 5/7/89 Flair v Steamboat match to the 6/5/89 Tsuruta v Tenyru match.  I think it will be evident which one is better.

 

A second way to go would be a simple match for match analysis with the 3/9/88 Tiger Mask v Tsuruta match vs. the Sting v Flair 3/27/88 Clash I match.  I once again think it will be pretty evident which match is better, even if the better match may be harder to get into upon a first viewing, where as the one in the paragraph above is easier.

 

Third would be the way I am going.  I have random stuff from AJPW from 89-01 but I am going back to May 1990 and working my way up with both AJ and NJ TV and watching it evolve.  I have the key stuff for most years (though there is so much more than key stuff that the TV will make up for).  It is not expensive if you just pay 20.00 a month for a 6hr block of TV from Lynch.  

 

I am hoping that by watching this stuff in order for both NJ and AJ, I will get a 100% understanding of both styles.  I get both now.  I like both and appreciate them, though I don't think my understanding of AJ and the NJ heavies is as good as it could be.  Same for Lucha, but my understanding of Lucha is almost non existant (minus the NJ Juniors influence of Rey, Juve, Psic), I still don't get old school real Lucha.  That should be taken care of in the next year.

 

With AJ, I stress patience and re watching.  Unlike a certain someone said in a post over here, having to rewatch a whole promotion to fully get it and like it is *NOT* bad, it only makes the experience more rich.

 

Tim

[Guest Jubuki]

I don't know how terribly unfamiliar AJPW is to U.S. stuff.  I think there's a reason the Funks, Race, Flair, Martel, von Erich, DiBiase, Hansen, Ace, Doc, Gordy, etc. could take tours once in a while and look good.  I think it would be enlightening, as suggested on tOA, to look at the Flair/Steamboat feud vs. the Jumbo/Tenryu feud.  It'd be hard to notice how Jumbo/Tenryu was inventing the style used by the other natives later by watching just that (without the later stuff to see as well), but it would show telling similarities and differences.  I think the same is true for Doc & Gordy (or even Hansen's WCW run in '90 when he was Triple Crown champ at the same time).  I'm eager to get my hands on the '92/early '93 AJ TV to see what they were doing at the time with Jumbo/Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi/Taue, in comparison to their work vs. the Steiners, Windham/Rhodes, and others in the US.  The structures aren't far apart; it's just how far the AJ atmosphere let them go in terms of bumping and selling, and how well-booked -- almost neurotically so -- AJ was at the time next to WCW.  WWF is nearly another matter entirely, as they seem near-oblivious to the past, even at their best.

[Guest wolverine]

Misawa v. Tsuruta, 6.8.1990 - the start of the 1990s AJPW revolution

Misawa v. Kawada 6.3.1994 - greatest singles match of all time

Misawa/Kobashi v. Kawada/Taue 6.9.1995 - greatest tag match of all time

Misawa v. Kobashi 1.20.1997 - the end of the golden age in AJPW heavies

 

.

Where's the love for 12-3-93 and 12-6-96?  These are both Top 5 picks, with the 96 match being the best match I personally have ever seen.

[Guest wolverine]

It is not expensive if you just pay 20.00 a month for a 6hr block of TV from Lynch.  

If possible, I would HIGHLY recommend getting all TV in SP mode.  If you pay good money for a tape, you should get the best possible quality.

[Guest thefrenchargel]

No love yet for Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask?! That would be one of the first things I'd pick up. Especially because they were doing high-flying, high-impact kickass action back when sleeperholds were deadly finishers. It still holds up as awesome even by standards people have today. Totally revolutionary stuff. Also, every match I've ever seen between the two has been fun to watch. There's comp tapes of these guys everywhere you look, so it isn't hard to find.

[Guest converge241]

Hey thanks for all the input people.

Its helping me and probably some other people too.

[Guest muzanisa]

Best of Budokan Hall

History of the IWGP

Although both have a lot of incomplete matches

Misawa vs Kobashi

Best of Tiger Mask

Best of Dynamite Kid

Super J cup

Best of Lucha compilations

 

 

I always get a best of to start and then if There's something that's interesting follow it up.

[Guest wolverine]

I always get a best of to start and then if There's something that's interesting follow it up.

"Best of's" are traditionally lacking in the VQ department.  Stay away if you can, buy if you must.

[Guest Black Tiger]

My recomendation is that if you want to check out a new fed or type of wrestling then just get a couple random shows of it. Don't watch them all at once or you tend to forget names, moves, etc.

 

After you watch the tapes a few times see you who start to take a liking to, then try to hunt down a best of comp for that wrestler (Puro wrestlers often NEVER jump ship, only in drastic measures like Kojima, Muto, etc)

 

For good comps check out www.goldenboytapes.com his comps are often at least good VQ/