pantherwagner Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 The short version: I hate most 80s UWF and UWFi style matches. The long version: I know that most people associate me with lucha libre, like some people are associated with joshi or AJPW, but I'm a guy that watches everything and anything. During my "down periods" a few years ago, AJPW classics were my saviour and basically the only thing I watched along with CMLL TV. Last year 80s AJW was my "great re-discovery" (I had watched many stuff over the years, but never tons and tons of hours like last year) and now I'm heavily getting into WOS the same way. When AAA was "the best promotion in the world", NJPW was my favourite. I'll watch lucha or Reslo or early 90s WCW or anything else that's good. The point I'm trying to drive home is that I'm a pretty open minded kind of guy, but I don't like the UWF style at all, and I was wondering if I'm the only one. Funny enough, I'm a pretty big MMA fan, and I watch all big PRIDE and K-1 events and all UFC events, so that's not the problem. Or maybe that's why, because what I hate the most from UWF is the long "working for a kneelock" or "working for an armbar" sections even when it's a great worker like Fujiwara or Yamazaki. It looks so unexciting when the matches are 15 minutes long. Takada in UWF bores me but then I love him as a NJ junior vs. Hase or Koshinaka. Generally the style comes off to me as not as exciting as real fighting and not as interesting as "pro" matwork. Most of the time, I only love the style when a native starts being a cunt and kicks gaijin in the face and then the others retaliate, creating an excitement that otherwise I don't see there. Am I on my own? Those of you who love the style, why do you do so? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 I love the actual wrestling style, but I hate that they can't just follow traditional pro wrestling rules. It's often mentioned how modern and advanced the UWF style is, but it really feels like a throwback to the days when there was a bit more mat wrestling. Obviously, the mat wrestling has evolved, but seeing a match that feels like a shoot and isn't is really a bare bones version of what wrestling is supposed to be at its best. Every style, even the ones that are as far from this as possible, operates with the goal of making the audience suspend their disbelief. I like that the style has big ups and big downs -- in the sense that they'll do something exciting and then bring the match down to let it sink in before doing something else big a few minutes later, but I like my pinfalls and submissions in wrestling, and adding TKOs, downs, etc. into it just really feels like Code of Honor-style bullshit that detracts from the match instead of helping it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 You're not on your own Jose. I've watched a lot of UWF matches recently through the best of the 80s DVDVR project and though I wouldn't say I hated the style, I did find the first half of a lot of matches really dull and soulless, as they just tentatively threw kicks and grappled to a stalemate on the ground. The early work was often meaningless, as they often just blew off whatever they had done for the first 5 to 10 minutes and started punting the hell out of each other when it was time to go to the finish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordi Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 I love Shoot Style, but only as a once-in-a-while extra bit of spice to my overall pro wrestling diet. I love it like I love well-cooked Greek food, in that I almost never think of going for souvlaki, but whenever I do I end up glad that I did. If I went for Greek food every day, though, I'm sure it wouldn't take long to get sick of it... I think that the DVDVR Other 80s set was the equivalent of two straight months of lamb, eggplant, olives, and retsina. No wonder if people have had their fill of UWF matches! I first heard about shoot style from a Josh Barnett interview, and learned some more from internet friends on the 411 boards... that led to me buying the famous Vader tape from Tabe... of course I loved it. I'd never seen such stiffness and realism in pro wrestling before. Eventually, I got Tabe's Takada set as well. The Other 80s set was a real treat, a chance to see the roots of the style, a chance to see Fujiwara... and Sayama. Enough is enough, though, and I don't feel the need to watch any more Shoot Style for a while... but I'll get a hankering for it again somewhere down the road, I'm sure. I agree that watching so much actual shoot fighting has changed the way I watch shoot style. What fascinates me, though, is how often they get it exactly right. Maybe the long struggles and reversals when trapped in submissions aren't realistic... but a lot of the little details like leg kick defense and ways of maneuvering into position are right on the money. Also, there's the whole aspect of understanding that pro wrestlers with actual shoot training felt stupid doing stuff like running the ropes and so they wanted to come up with a style that didn't insult people's intelligence (or at least require such a huge suspension of disbelief). I think they did that really well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 As someone who hasn't really watched a huge amount of BattlARTS up until this point, what did that promotion do that made them different? Would you consider it UWF style or would you consider it something else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordi Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 As someone who hasn't really watched a huge amount of BattlARTS up until this point, what did that promotion do that made them different? Would you consider it UWF style or would you consider it something else? Someone (Phil? Dean?) on DVDVR once summed it up beautifully as the first post-modern wrestling style. They took the best elements of Shoot Style (emphasis on strikes, suplexes, and submissions, sick stiffness, all clean finishes, anyone can be beaten...) and mixed it up with crazy entertaining stuff from other styles of pro wrestling... Here's the actual quote (From DVDVR #100) No way I could put it better than this: DIASUKE IKEDA/TAKESHI ONO VS. SATOSHI YONEYAMA/ALEXANDER OTSUKA- BATTLARTS- SAMURAI! TV debut card (RASMUSSEN) This was the first TRULY great match to come out of BattlARTS as Ikeda finally perfected the style that he wanted the promotion to use. He toned down the overly-esoteric shootstyle sections or simply used them as a vehicle for a pro-style psychological element and then kicked up the strongstyle and US Pro-style elements to the point that it became the first truly realized Postmodern Pro wrestling style- in that it synthesized whole elements of three styles and synthesized them to the point that they were usually pretty seamless. The match itself is a nigh perfect as the stiffness is fricking amazing and the effortless switching from shootstyle to strong style to US Pro style is really cool- like listening to Game Theory for the first time or something. The ending is fucking AMAZING as Ikeda and Otsuka try to see how much punishment each can take in a worked setting as they try to knock each other out by pounding the living crap out of each other. Harrowingly great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 All I've seen is '96 stuff, which I'm guessing is why I haven't really seen the Pro-style and comedy stuff too much that's been mentioned as being a big part of the style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordi Posted March 8, 2007 Report Share Posted March 8, 2007 All I've seen is '96 stuff, which I'm guessing is why I haven't really seen the Pro-style and comedy stuff too much that's been mentioned as being a big part of the style. I've mainly just seen late 90s BattlARTS, and it's amazing stuff. IMO, it certainly lives up to the hype. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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