Jon Cortez

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Jetlag]

Since Terry Rudge is a definite consideration, Cortez should be a must have too, as I think he was arguably more consistent. I think there is only one match of his from the 70s available (a pretty fun bout), but throughout the 80s he was such an awesome veteran technician on the british TV, who got high quality, hard fought matches out of anyone, with most of them being up there with the best stuff of the decade.

 

Recommended matches:

 

vs. Pete La Paque

vs. Steve Grey

vs. Keith Haward

[ohtani's jacket]

There's five matches available from the 70s. The rest of his stuff is from Reslo and the 80s. Flat out one of the best workers ever in my opinion, and while I dislike this kind of terminology, he was one of the best workers in the world in the early 80s. His series with Haward was light years ahead of what anybody else was doing in the early 80s. It's as close to shoot style in a 1980 British ring as you will see from any other match-up.

[GSR]

I always thought that Breaks would be a shoe in for being my top ranked WOS wrestler, though I'm not convinced as I once was. Cortez currently has my favourite WOS bout in the 70s (vs Jim Breaks on 05.26.76) and 80s (vs Steve Grey, 07.27.81), and he has every chance of usurping him the more that I see.

[ohtani's jacket]

I've always found 70s Cortez a little disappointing. I think he was better in the 80s. People really need to start exploring his stuff though as too many people don't know him from a bar of soap.

[Childs]

Watched Cortez vs. Grey from 1981 last night and I really undersold that match when I first reviewed it a few years ago. They brought a tremendous sense of struggle to the grappling, with Cortez going after Grey's arm like a pitbull and Grey responding by getting a little more chippy than he usually would. I loved the sense the match could get out of control at any moment, even as they showcased great technical skill. The ending left a bad taste the first time I watched it, and it was still shit. But overall, the match bolster's each guy's case for this list.

[GSR]

I was listening to an old IWA-MS Q&A session recently that was held during one of the TPI tournaments from some time in the mid 2000s. One of the questions was 'If you could work with anyone from any period who would it be?'. Claudio Castagnoli's answer was Jon Cortez (which brought silence from the room as I think no-one else there had heard of him).

[Dylan Waco]

Cortez is tough for me because I do value volume, and he doesn't seem to have as much as I would ideally like for a top tier guy. The real shame of this is that if I were rating on pure skill, technique, and ability to build compelling matches from that talent Cortez might be my number one pick from the WOS/Brit crew.

 

Along those lines there is a sense in which Cortez is the single most impressive guy out of the entire bunch. Where Breaks, McManus, and possibly even Saint or Grey with the right packaging, are guys who I think could have made it relatively big in at least some U.S. territories, Cortez is perhaps the only guy from that universe who I think could be airlifted into a true shootstyle setting and immediately excel with no hiccups at all.

 

His grappling really is excellent and feels tighter than anyone elses from that scene. Where the others rely on craftiness and flash, with Cortez the holds often have an aura of real danger. There is a way he has of making the routine look violent that is a massive trait in a WOS setting. In part due to the fact that he projects intensity onto both the basic and the difficult things he does, the transitions and momentum swings in his matches come across as especially dramatic. In general I think he either understood escalation better than most, or his style and approach naturally lent itself to it. Either way his matches almost always impress.

 

I also think he did interesting things with leverage that made his grappling feel more honest without departing from the theatrical elements you need in a pro wrestling match. It's an odd observation perhaps, but he seemed to work angles on escapes and holds that seemed to be in keeping with what I would expect in a true contest. I'm not saying others didn't do this, but I do think Cortez was especially good at it.

 

I do think he showed a good bit of range in terms of being able to work sprints, work longer affairs, make the most out of limited opponents, and hit home runs with other greats. Still, I wish there was more of him available.

 

I'm likely to include him at this point, but probably in the bottom twenty or so.

[ohtani's jacket]

I haven't counted how many Cortez bouts there are on tape, or how many I've seen, but I guess it's between 20-30. The only problem I have with saying that's enough for me is that I like him far more in the 80s than 70s, and he jumps to All-Star, which means bye-bye footage. He's also deceptively old in the footage we have, so it's hard to pinpoint his prime and all that. But he's just do great in his early 80s run. I don't know how much of that run is still unearthed, but I'd jump to see any of it.