Dave on Sayama and watching old footage

[Log]

All of this stuff is well and good and important in understanding the context of the match, but when I'm watching something in 2011, what matters to me is how I feel about it in 2011.

Ex-act-ly! I just saw The Matrix on tv last week. When that movie came out, I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. It was the first movie I bought when I got a dvd player. My roommates and I watched the shit out of it in college.

 

Watching it last week, I thought it sucked. The acting was shitty, the storyline cheesy, but the special effects were still impressive...for the time.

 

The TM/DK matches are kind of the wrestling equivalent of The Matrix. There's not much substance to either, but the special effects/spots were revolutionary for the time.

[MikeCampbell]

Sayama may have been revolutionary but the matches don't stand the test of time.

This. There's a reason that Baba/Destroyer from '69, Jumbo/Terry from '76, Baba/Robinson from '76, The Funks vs. Brody/Snuka from December '81, and countless others are still considered great matches more than 20-30 years later. While Sayama's matches, as admittedly revolutionary are they were, generally (RE's exception noted) aren't.

[Jingus]

What about making a quick-n-easy "Sayama ain't that good" primer? Like, a little list of Youtube matches to compare and contrast. Something along the lines of "here's this highly-pimped Sayama match, and then here's this Hamada/Fujinami/whoever match which does the exact same shit but puts Tiger Mask to shame". Or vice-versa, if you think watching the good match before the bad one is better. There's plenty of folks like myself who still enjoy those DK/TM bouts, but aren't very familiar with the early-80s NJPW cruiserweight scene and thus are relative strangers to the counterarguements.

[Loss]

You should pick up the NJ 80s set, Jingus. All the pimped matches are on there, and it's a good place to start.

[Resident Evil]

There are some really great matches missed in that set though.

[Ditch]

The set is an incredible value and gives one plenty of Sayama, DK, Fujinami and Hamada to mull over.

[EricR]

There are some really great matches missed in that set though.

What matches were missed?

[jdw]

Looking at Dave's point, remove it from the Sayama-Hamada point of view and apply it to:

 

Hogan-Flair.

 

Hogan was more over than Flair. More people watched him. His matches, over time, got more heat simply because more people were in the building.

 

Ego, it doesn't matter that a bunch of hardcore fans in the 80s thought Flair was a better worker than Hogan, because Hogan had to have been better: vastly more people in the country gave a shit about him.

 

In addition, it doesn't matter that a lot of people in the business at the time, and kids who got into the business since, think that Flair is the better worker. The numbers don't lie, and since Hogan drew more, people at the time and of course now need to recognize Hogan was in fact the best worker in the world in the 80s.

 

Does that fly at fucking all?

 

Not to Dave. Why? Because Dave saw Flair and Hogan back than with his own eyes and thought Flair was better. Not only better, but much better. In addition, lots of other people told Dave that they thought Flair was better, including lots of people in the business. In addition, lots of people since then have told Dave that they got into the business because of Ric, and he was better.

 

So the numbers don't mean shit, and the fact that Hogan was vastly more over at the time, and the fact that the overwhelming major of people in the country when they thought of Pro Wrestling thought of Hulk Hogan... doesn't mean shit.

 

Why?

 

Because Dave, and others, saw/see it with their own eyes and made up their mind that Flair was the better worker. The much better worker.

 

So why aren't people able to do the same thing with Sayama and Hamada? Why the hypocracy that one can judge the work of Evil Hulk compared to Our Hero Ric, but we can't compare the work of Iconic Tigeryama and Hamada?

 

Well... because.

 

I have no skin in the Sayama-Hamada work argument. Sayama's work is an old debate for me, and I haven't watched as much Hamada as other folks. Not an argument I really get worked up about.

 

But I do always find interesting how many different statements are made to slap down things like this that if you stepped back and applied them to OHR vs EH, they don't workout so well. Nor would one even attempt to make them.

 

John

[Beast]

You're saying Hogan was more successful, but Dave saw Flair and Hogan in the 80s and came to the conclusion Flair was a better worker.

 

The comparison would work in favor of Tiger Mask because Dave saw Tiger Mask and Hamada in the 80s and came to the conclusion Tiger Mask was a better worker.

[jdw]

That's not the Sayama-Hamada comp that Dave is making up at the top.

 

But nice try.

 

John

[Beast]

I'm responding to what you're saying asshole.

 

Dave said Tiger Mask wasn't trying to perform for fans 25 years in the future. What he did at the time was new and exciting and while fans' idea of good wrestling may have evolved towards something else, it doesn't change that Tiger Mask was a great worker at the time.

 

Your Flair-Hogan comparison doesn't work.

 

But nice try.

[jdw]

Dave is saying that all that Sayama cared about was getting over to the fans, and that he got over more than Hamada.

 

All that Hogan cared about was getting over with the fans, and he got over more than Flair.

 

To Dave, that made Sayama a better worker than Hamada.

 

To Dave, well... he doesn't want to go there with Hogan because Hulk is Evil and Ric is Our Hero.

 

They're the same thing. The result is just different because Dave doesn't really care to be consistent.

 

John

[Loss]

There was nothing asshole about that response, Beast. Cool it.

[jdw]

I did have the "nice try" dig in there, which was borderline asshole. I read his run-in as the standard Dave/Bryan defending which make up 75% of his posts here, and did toss in the dig there. He deserves a pass on it as it's a retaliation. My bad.

 

John

[rovert]

Paul Miller provides an interesting and logical reply:

 

By this rationale, Sabu should be in the WON HOF. Sayama was only in New Japan for two years (in a day and age where almost every show wasn't taped for broadcast), the guys who really deserve the credit for keeping that division alive are those that kept it going for the six years until Liger took off as Liger.

 

If you actually watch the New Japan 80's set instead of going off memories, you would see what those guys are talking about.

[Al]

Sabu is really an interesting comp. Flashy, innovative, reckless, and his matches often don't hold up too well.

[MikeCampbell]

I'm not saying that I agree with them, but I do see the point that Dave and RE are trying to make here. Sayama vs. DK was a great 1982 match, but not so much for us 2011 nitpicky bastards. The same way that Daniel Bryan is putting on great matches in 2011, but the jdw's of 2041 (and I don't mean that in a mean way, John) may think he sucks.

[Loss]

I'm not saying that I agree with them, but I do see the point that Dave and RE are trying to make here. Sayama vs. DK was a great 1982 match, but not so much for us 2011 nitpicky bastards. The same way that Daniel Bryan is putting on great matches in 2011, but the jdw's of 2041 (and I don't mean that in a mean way, John) may think he sucks.

I love how jdw is making an effort to play nice in the thread and is still used as the example of the overly critical fan.

 

Not directed toward you, Mike, just funny.

[Victator]

Does that fly at fucking all?

Little bit.

[smkelly]

Going by Ray Bradbury's logic, imagine the landscape of professional wrestling had the first match and resulting series never taken place.

 

While DK doesn't have as many sign-ups as Flair, he has quite a few for such a shitty worker. I don't know much about Japanese motivation, but I'm willing to bet many followed TM's foot-prints, again, not bad for such a shitty worker.

[El-P]

Sabu is really an interesting comp. Flashy, innovative, reckless, and his matches often don't hold up too well.

I disagree. After my ECW watch last year, Sabu is a guy that not only hold up very well, but actually got up in my totem pole. Sabu matches aren't great in a "oh, look at that cool spot" kinda way, but in what Sabu portrayed and conveyed through those insane spots, a complete lunatic that would do insane shit to himself to hurt his opponent. Sure, they were some poor setup at times, but Sabu brought so much shit, never got complacent and always mixed up things by modifying one of his usual spot, brought new teases, that the positives to me squashed the negatives. And his matches didn't look like controlled chaos not overscripted "insane" match like we saw in WWE in the last decade, it looked like real chaos, and the occasionnal sloppyness actually added to that. Wrestling has become way too clean, and rewatching Sabu's matches today (or Sandman's), makes them look actually better and deeper than just "look at the insane spots". To me Sabu got better with time because the times have gone so far toward overproducing and overscripting that this guy's work looks much more fresh and organic in comparison. And there's that fascinating stuff about never knowing if he was actually hurt or just selling, which infact kinda made him the most realistic "seller" I've seen.

Anyway, I'm ranting, and it has really nothing to do with Tiger, whose work doesn't hold up that well with the times for other reasons.

[Ditch]

While DK doesn't have as many sign-ups as Flair, he has quite a few for such a shitty worker. I don't know much about Japanese motivation, but I'm willing to bet many followed TM's foot-prints, again, not bad for such a shitty worker.

Really? This deep in and you're using "they influenced a lot of people so they must be good"? C'mon, nobody's disputing that. The question is whether there's enough to those matches beyond the athleticism that makes them hold up to standards that are used to judge wrestling from across time. Things like selling and transitions and execution aren't controversial standards. People were willing to overlook those things at the time because of the novelty. Now that TM vs DK is watched through something other than rose-colored glasses, it seems like they aren't holding up. "The matches were influential" is at best a very weak appeal to authority.

[Matt D]

I'm not saying that I agree with them, but I do see the point that Dave and RE are trying to make here. Sayama vs. DK was a great 1982 match, but not so much for us 2011 nitpicky bastards. The same way that Daniel Bryan is putting on great matches in 2011, but the jdw's of 2041 (and I don't mean that in a mean way, John) may think he sucks.

The big problem I have with this mindset is that us 2011 nitpicky bastards have a lot of matches from the same era that are still (or even "newly") considered great both relative to the Sayama vs DK ones and relative to matches of today. I feel like that aspect is being undervalued here. Everything is being held to the same standard and a lot of things DO hold up.

[MikeCampbell]

The big problem I have with this mindset is that us 2011 nitpicky bastards have a lot of matches from the same era that are still (or even "newly") considered great both relative to the Sayama vs DK ones and relative to matches of today. I feel like that aspect is being undervalued here. Everything is being held to the same standard and a lot of things DO hold up.

I totally agree, which was why I mentioned matches like the '81 Tag League with the Funks against Brody/Snuka and the two classics from '76. I was just saying that I could see the point that Dave and RE were trying to make. I don't agree with it at all, how exactly one is supposed to put themselves 'in the '80's' is beyond me.

[kjh]

I really think DK vs. Sayama 4/21/83 is the New Japan equivalent of Foley's Hell In The Cell match with Undertaker. I'm sure that you can still find lots of more casual fans that still go nuts for that Cell spectacle, but the work wasn't smart at all even though it had several jaw dropping moments. Which leads to another point over how positive Dynamite's and TM's legacy really was. Like Foley, many workers copied their bad traits as well as their good ones.