
An Illustrated Guide to Masked Wrestlers - feross
https://pudding.cool/2020/05/wrestling
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riffraff
I cannot read some of the stuff on this site in the "around the world"
section, I don't understand if it's a JS bug, a CSS issue or just plain
missing content.

Other than that, it looks nice and it's interesting!

As an Italian who was a kid in the '80s we got exposed to two things: US
Wrestling TV (Hulk Hogan, André the Giant etc) and Japanese wrestling but only
through the Tiger Mask anime[0].

This was an interesting contrast because the live action was visibly silly
while the anime was _extremely_ violent and serious, and we still lived in an
era when animation was considered "for kids".

Anyway both things were considered "bad for kids", which obviously made them
even more sought after.

I think everyone ended up wearing a tiger mask at some point in their
childhood, and I did end up breaking a friend's arm while wrestling (I was
Koko B. Ware[1]).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Mask](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Mask)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_B._Ware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_B._Ware)

~~~
cruhstaller
> […] Japanese wrestling but only through the Tiger Mask anime[0].[…] This was
> an interesting contrast because the live action was visibly silly

If you take the WWF (now WWE) as the base yes I can confirm that the silly
comment is right. It was their product a more cartoonish-gimmicky style of
wrestling. But especially when we look at the Japanese wrestling I would
challenge the silly part. Puroresu (Japanese wrestling) had always a more
stiffer kind of wrestling and put more weight to it that it looked more like a
legitimate competitive sport [1][2].

Also in the USA you had the NWA at that time which always had more the vibe of
a real competitive sport with more real characters.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2uQvLlgW5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2uQvLlgW5A)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCpkKtyyG0Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCpkKtyyG0Y)

~~~
BryantD
Depends on which promotion to some degree. The big Japanese pro wrestling
promotions (New Japan Pro Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling) definitely
lean into the legitimate sport side of the art form. On the other hand, light
heavyweight oriented promotions like Michinoku Pro and Dragon Gate draw
massive inspiration from Mexican lucha libre and tend to be more goofy[1].

But the great thing about Japanese pro wrestling for me has always been the
variety. You can watch hardcore death matches involving barbed wire, if that's
your thing. You can watch masked wrestlers doing ridiculous high flying. You
can watch actual competitive MMA, sometimes with the same wrestlers who
participate in worked/scripted matches.

However I am mostly nitpicking because I love this stuff and also I am showing
off a bit. You're correct for 95% of Japanese pro wrestling.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RnaIzuVt4g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RnaIzuVt4g)

~~~
cruhstaller
Yes im completely agree with you that's why I tried my hardest to not use
absolutes.

My answer showed probably also that I had some interests in pro wrestling.
It's not exaggerated that it's my biggest hobby.

And just to show off a little bit more I'm active in the wrestling business as
a co-promoter and also as a manager! I mean it's just a hobby mostly even
costing more then it makes but hey it's a lot of fun.

I'm a little bit skeptical of the modern wrestling I'm more of a 80s' 90s'
wrestling guy.

I grew up loving WCW and I still I love it and by gosh this promotion is dead
almost 20 years (and yeah they did a lot of goofy stuff too…).

Sorry for the babbling! ;)

------
elicash
The first introduction of the Shockmaster (the stormtrooper helmet stood out
to me in this list) was AMAZING:

[https://youtu.be/Fahljd_0xjA?t=74](https://youtu.be/Fahljd_0xjA?t=74)

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ImpressiveWebs
Nice job on the comprehensiveness of this.

Seems to be missing the Black Scorpion, a gimmick of the Horsemen and Ric
Flair in the early 90s.

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lonelappde
Unreadable on Android Chrome. Absolute position elements cover part of
scrollable region donuts impossible to scroll all the text into view.

Web devs, not everyone uses the same small font size as you young kids.

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kyoob
This is fantastic. I was just talking to someone yesterday who had no idea who
La Parka was. Come on!

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darrenf
Love this - but moderately confused by the distinction between "English" and
"British", since the two Brits listed are English! :)

~~~
codenberg
fixed!

~~~
darrenf
Excellent. And I hadn't even twigged that Marty Scurll was absent at the time
:)

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mlok
I cannot read descriptions until the end. The text is out of sight and
unreachable.

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bugcollector
this is amazing!

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talkinghead
blazing fast

~~~
ape4
yes, how do they do that pour-in effect? (I know I could look at the source)

~~~
codenberg
rendered the sprite to an offscreen canvas to grab the pixel values. then
created rects to represent each pixel and move around on a canvas with a speed
based on y position.

