Comparison: Kiyoshi Tamura vs El Dandy

Tamura's one of my three favourite wrestlers from Japan and Dandy's one of my three favourite wrestlers from Mexico. Tamura's one of the guys who made me love shoot style and Dandy's one of the guys who made me love lucha. In a lot of ways this is my Kandori v Chicana.


Top Matches - Tamura. Dandy v Casas will probably be my #1 this year and it would've been my #1 last year, so I guess on the strength of that alone he should have a case. The fact he has a handful of other matches I'll either have on my list or will strongly consider bolsters his case further. The Angel Azteca match, the Satanico match, the May '90 trios, the November '96 trios in the wake of the Santo turn, the triangle match with Santo and Casas, the '01 title match against Navarro, the '94 Llanes match. He has a great Top Match resume. But I'll go Tamura on depth, and even if he doesn't have a match I'm currently strongly considering for #1 he does have three that'll potentially be top 10, which is nuts, and easily as many as Dandy that are in top 100 consideration. I also still haven't seen the Yamamoto match from '99. This is really close, but Tamura.

Versatility - Dandy. At first glance this feels like Dandy pretty easily as Tamura only worked shoot style his entire career, and in some ways that doesn't really leave a ton of wiggle room for versatility. But he was awesome at different roles within that style, whether he was young prodigy with a chip on his shoulder, young superstar coming into his own, underdog working against someone three times his size, guy at the peak of his powers working even with other guys at the peak of their powers, dominant promotion ace, and because he worked UWFi it meant we got to see him in tags as well. He ruled at pretty much every one of those things. Obviously his case as a GOAT candidate rests heavily on him being a god tier mat worker, but if we're looking at brawling within the context of shoot style then there aren't many guys who I'd rather watch in a scrap. With Dandy, he was amazing in singles, whether it was a lengthy title match built around matwork, or a mano a mano lead in where things were always on the cusp of spilling over, or a balls out gorefest full of forehead-biting and blood-spitting and such. Amazing trios worker and could slot into the A, B or C slot seamlessly. Even a quality 2v2 tag wrestler and that's my least favourite match type in lucha. Incredible tecnico, awesome rudo. I suppose the nature of lucha means Dandy had more opportunity to be versatile on the whole, but it is what it is.

Consistency - Tamura. I'm trying not to let this have any bearing on my pick here, but I imagine Tamura would still be awesome fifteen years after he stopped doing the fake fighting. Either way he was best in the world level when he went out and was at least fun literally straight out the gate in his first match. Elliott can speak more to his stretch in the mid to late 90s where he was also best in the world level, because I haven't watched any of that stretch from '93 until he left for RINGS in a long time, but from '96 to '99 he was every bit as good as anybody else on the planet. The only point of his career where I never thought he was actively really fucking good was the first year or so, and even then he was no less than fun (and this is the point where he was literally having his first proper matches of his career, on televised cards, without the benefit of house show dummy runs to iron out the kinks). Dandy was unbelievable from around '88-'91 and a three year stretch of greatness shouldn't be scoffed at, but he's sort of patchy at other points of his career. He looked amazing again in '96 though, so maybe CMLL going through those dark years never did him any favours. Doesn’t have much of an old man run that many of his peers do. Tamura’s one of the most consistent wrestlers ever, basically.

Charisma/"It" Factor - Dandy. Maybe this is a preference thing. Tamura's charisma is awesome and sort of Misawa-esque in how stoic he can be. When he hit his peak he absolutely felt like The Man. Dandy's pomp was incredible and there's the lead up to the Satanico match where they did the interview in his house and he looked like champion of the universe. They're different kinds of charismatic and they have a different sort of It Factor, but I suppose Dandy resonates with me more.

Promos - N/A. I speak enough Spanish that I'll listen to a Dandy interview and most likely want to watch the match he's hyping. I speak no Japanese, however.

Elevating Others - Draw. This was hard because I think both have great examples of this. Tamura going to the wire with Ito made the latter look like the heir to the throne. Similarly, Azteca/Dandy gave the impression that Azteca could be the next eternal masked tecnico along the lines of an Atlantis. I think both had stretches where they were likely to make opponents look good just by being in there with them; or at least the matches were going to be better, even if the opponents never required any "elevating" (I mean, Han never needed to be hand led but Tamura was his perfect dance partner for a reason). On a personal level I tend to look forward to both these guys regardless of opponent and both make big matches feel must-see. So draw.

Offense - Tamura. Being a strong mat worker isn't necessarily the same as being a strong offensive wrestler, but Tamura working dominant on the mat is a treat. I guess a lot of matwork in itself could be considered offense though, at least in shoot style where a large amount of your avenues to victory go through that facet of wrestling. And he's probably my all-time favourite wrestler at doing that particular thing. He's also a world class striker. Dandy's also a tremendous mat worker and there are few guys in lucha whose stuff looks as sharp. Can be an amazing puncher. I could pretty much coin flip this.

Selling - Tamura. I feel cheap bringing up matwork for selling when I already did it for offense, but I'd point to Fujiwara working the mat defensively as something he's better at than anybody ever and I guess that's an extension of selling. Tamura's great at it as well, even if it's a different kind of defense. Fujiwara would be more methodical whereas Tamura would be super explosive while still on the back foot. He's great at selling urgency and that sense of "I've had enough of this so somebody's getting drilled in the teeth." He also has some of the best and most realistic selling of strikes ever. Dandy's blood loss selling is incredible and will bump like a fucking headcase so this is yet another coin flip. Honestly, I think the biggest factor in me going Tamura is that the style he excels in is my favourite style of wrestling, while Dandy's is like my second or third.

Rewatch Valley - Tamura. I'm a broken record but shoot style is my favourite style of wrestling and Tamura's my favourite shoot stylist. Dandy has the singles and tags and trios and apuestas and the like, so I suppose if I was going to be stuck on a desert island I might take an El Dandy career comp just for the versatility, but when am I going to be stuck on a desert island anyway? I've rewatched Tamura more than Dandy and would do so again. And I love Dandy.

Bonus Elliott's Question (Brody vs Nigel or best work associated with a crappy wrestler) - Tamura. I'll watch Dandy against most average luchadors and he's had plenty decent outings with average luchadors involved, but I'm not sure I've seen him opposite the licha libre Tom Burton and make it work. Tamura v literally anybody he's ever matched up with in his career is worth watching to me.


Tamura - 6
Dandy - 2
Draw - 1

Dandy's a top 15 all-timer to me but Tamura's a top 5er.


EDIT: I typed all of this nonsense out before realising Elliott even responded so most of these talking points are basically the same as his. I think his Elevating Others section may have swung me as well...