MOTY Project: Adrian Street vs. Jim Breaks (12-2-72, Joint Promotion)

 Alright, so one could argue that "Exotic" Adrian Street exploited homophobia a little bit. This would be wrong, I think--Adrian Street was, as far as I know, the first implicitly-gay wrestling character who was presented as a real threat. He was also a genius wrestler and legitimately tough as nails, and was a friend to the gay community. Anyways, the match...

MOTY Project: PWI in 72/73

 THE PWI PICKS

So, with the first ever PWI Matches of the Year, we've got two I can't really properly consider. In January '72, Bruno Sammartino finishes first in a battle royal held in Los Angeles. It's a bit of a non-starter, because as far as I know, no footage of this match exists, and even if it did, I don't enjoy battle royals to any incredible extent, especially battle royals from this era. For an example of a battle royal from this year, see this:

1972 Battle Royal

It's not bad. In fact, in comparison to the average battle royal in the present day this is pretty phenomenal. But, man, I can't stand the meandering.  (Also, full disclosure, I can't identify, like, any of these guys, and I'd be really fascinated with anyone who really could identify every wrestler here.)

So, as far as what I know about this match, apparently Mike LeBelle held a 22-man battle royal every year. According to a poster at Wrestling Classics, the structure of this event was that various wrestlers competed in singles matches, before eventually competing in the actual battle royal. In that thread, wrestling historian Steve Yohe seems to report that the event was just alright. (Steve Yohe wrestled a bear, he knows what he's talking about.)

So for 1972 I'm kind of stuck with the PWI pick, which means...I guess I'm going to have to burn through a bunch of 1972 matches to find a pick. The first flight of matches will be something like a solid five-hour chunk of wrestling.

Several shows held on 27-10-24

I watched a bunch of the shows from the 27th, consuming more wrestling than is medically safe in the process.

My Match of the Year project

As a part of this blog, something I'd like to do is watch all of the Match of the Year candidates in the different major Match of the Year awards (including PWI, WON, and Tokyo Sports).

Honestly, this whole thing is just an excuse to try and educate myself further on the history of wrestling, so in addition to watching and reviewing as many of these matches as I can pick up, I'd like to pin down some of my own favorite matches each year.

Because of my own strange tastes and predilections, I will set a few things down here to explain how I'll do this:

• I won't be paying attention to historical importance, nor will I pay a ton of attention to the booking. I will try to be informed on this stuff if I'm considering something for my MOTY, but it won't be a decisive factor and I don't make any promises.
• My reaction to the actual match as I'm watching it will be the most important factor.
• I also might just pick something that epitomizes the general creative gist of a company when I like it.
• Death matches, shoot wrestling, comedy matches, hybrid styles, weird combos are on the docket. I'm fairly omnivorous in all of my media tastes, and wrestling is no different. I also don't believe that any of these things are more or less "wrestling" or have more or less value.
• There will be a lot more women's wrestling than you'd probably expect. This is because women's wrestling is good, and because many of the absolute best wrestlers ever are women.

I'd like to use this post as a hub for this whole project, so I'll try to update here with any further posts about this.

1972

• Not approved: Bruno Sammartino's Battle Royal (14-01-72). (PWI)
• Approved: Adrian Street vs. Jim Breaks. (12-02-72).

1973

• Not approved: Harley Race vs. Dory Funk Jr. (25-05-73). (PWI) 

1974

• Strong maybe: Antonio Inoki vs. Strong Kobayashi 19-03-74 (Tokyo Sports)