Mad Dog

He'd be pretty middle of the pack for a sports writer. His stuff isn't any better/worse than what you'd find on ESPN or CBS. There are some practically illiterate people writing about sports.

I think Koko got a title shot against Savage on Wrestling Challenge around the time Haynes did. It might have been non-title though. Valiant/Whatley got some play on Worldwide. Whatley turned on Valiant in an interview and cut off some of his hair. It sucked and everything but it was a B show feud that spilled onto World Championship Wrestling here and there.

You had to watch all of the JCP television to see the whole roster. You really just saw the top acts on World Championship Wrestling but if you really break down the roster in 1985-86 it was fairly huge. Sam Houston actually got a pretty sizable push in JCP. He won the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship when they were trying to make that belt matter again.

JTTS is a hardcore fan term as far as I know. Don't recall if it was in some of the newsletters before it hit the usenet (rec.sport.pro-wrestling). Jobber is of course a term wrestlers use and didn't come from the sheets or usenet. Folks came up with JTTS to describe the SD Jones type of jobber, though years after SD ran his course. John SD Jones always seemed more of a full on jobber rather than JTTS, albeit a high level one with name recognition. I'd figure the JTTS as more Tito Santana post-Strike Force, or Hillbilly Jim in his later years. S.D. Jones was a JTTS in the 70s but settled more into a high level jobber as the 80s progressed. But there was a point where he beat jobbers and some low level mid-carders.

I think they typically referred to jobber matches as enhancement work or enhancement talent.

Not died from diverticulitis.

It's strictly net lingo as far as I know.

If you watch the old AWA Television on ESPN, you can catch Meltzer and Tenay at the Las Vegas shows all the time.

You get a rub from the JTTS if the announcers do their job. I'll use Greg Valentine as an example. You talk up how he's a former Intercontinental and former Tag Team Champion and how he's been in there and beaten some of the top talent in the world. Then you talk about how it would be a real feather in the cap of the up and comer. Then in following weeks you talk about how up and comer made a real statement by beating a guy like Valentine. You also need Valentine to have won enough on television recently to make it seem like he's still relevant though. When I had 24/7 the role of the JTTS was a lot more clear. They'd play arena shows and the opening match always had S.D. Jones in the late 70s and early 80s and that transitioned to Lanny Poffo in the mid 80s and then transitioned to Koko in the late 80s, early 90s. So in that sense, those three were the openers that were over and would warm the crowd up by jobbing to the latest heel climbing the ranks and get everyone hyped for the rest of the show.

I was just messing with you. But Flair was a different animal than anything they had done in the 80s. Heel champions in the 80s was a month of Iron Sheik, a couple of days of Andre the Giant/Ted Dibiase and a couple of months of Savage after a heel turn. And on top of that, after those reigns, the heels were essentially discarded for the next challenger. Flair in contrast, had a couple of months as the champion, lost the belt, and then stayed in the chase and regained the belt from the face. That was the first time the WWE had done that with a heel. And if you take that a step further, Yokozuna completely shattered the mold a year later and was the second longest reigning champion in company history. There seemed to be a slight philosophy change for the company in that 92-94 era as the company didn't use heel champions as transitions for their faces.

I was looking over 1992 and they really broke the norm with Ric Flair. I think that was the first time the heel lost the title and then regained it from the face that he won it from. It really felt like more of an NWA style title run than it did a WWE run. That better?

1990 wasn't a bad year for him. He made it to the finals against Hennig in the I.C. Tournament and he was in the final match of Survivor Series that year. He wasn't lighting the world on fire or anything but that was probably the best push he got as a singles wrestler post-Strikeforce.

Take it with a grain of salt but Tito Santana claims they were also considering him for that Hart/Flair title change. I tend to think he's full of shit as he wasn't getting any real kind of push other than making it to the final match in the 91 Survivor Series. Just an interesting little sidenote to that.

Have it ready to ship before the body is even cold. Don't want someone beating you to the punch.

Yeah, the dispute was Gagne had agreed to the tour he was leaving for then changed his mind and wanted Hansen to drop the belt before then. Hansen refused and left with the belt for Japan and the AWA striped him of the belt afterwards. Hansen proceeded to defend the belt in All Japan. The rumor is when the AWA threatened legal action that Hansen ran over the AWA Title in his truck and mailed it back to them.

I watched the whole run a couple of weeks ago on Youtube. Martel looked pretty good throughout the whole run and appeared to be in fairly good ring shape by the end of it. People overrated it a bit but he really showed a lot. It's too bad really, I wonder what he would've done with a longer run with the company. I thought he meshed well with Saturn in the ring too.

I only catalog Dragon Gate and New Japan because I own such a high volume of shows that I don't want to buy duplicates.

I still think Diesel gets a bad rep for his run on top as champ. He really had some of the worst challengers of any long term champion that I can think of. Sure, he had Hart at the Rumble and Michaels at a pretty awful Mania but then you get Mabel at Summerslam and his reign really lost any steam at that point.

This thread wouldn't be complete without some Chuck Taylor:

It might have been. I watched an SMW show recently and you could hear that lady screaming during the entirety of a Brian Lee match.

And let's just look at Evolve. Name one thing about Evolve that separates itself from another indy out there. Wins and losses count? Okay, what does that mean long term and why do I care if wins and losses count when guys might do a couple of shots and be gone? Who wrestles for Evolve that I can't see in another promotion? What angles are going on in the company that are interesting? I roam wrestling boards and news sites on a daily basis. I didn't know what the fuck Evolve was until they had Finley come in for a match. If I don't know what Evolve is or when they're running shows then Gabe isn't doing his job.

Gabe really doesn't get "it". Gas is expensive. Driving 1-3 hours, one way could easily turn into close to $100. Why as a Columbus native am I going to drive to Dayton or Cleveland for DGUSA or Evolve when I can wait for the WWE or TNA to come to town? Why go to those shows when Chikara goes to smaller towns closer to me. Counting on people to travel for your shows is straight up retarded. I can see almost all of the guys he uses in other feds closer to home for cheaper. Maybe he should buy a clue as a promoter and figure out how to make people pay for his product. Everyone else seems to be getting pirated too and some companies are getting really big. Hell, NWA Hollywood gives most of their content away for free and have developed a huge local fanbase for the television as well as a big buzz. Maybe Gabe should spend more time figuring out how companies like NWA Anarchy, NWA Hollywood, Chikara, PWG, etc. are making it work instead of crying about how his companies aren't making it.

I think the other problem with indies is you an only see the same 20-30 guys shuffled around so many times before it starts to get boring. I think that's another big flaw to DGUSA and Evolve to a lesser extent. All of those guys are native to other promotions and are made more compelling by more competent bookers than Gabe.

I really wanted to like DGUSA but it really feels like Gabe has missed the point of what makes the actual Dragon Gate promotion fun. Plus, his booking has just been incompetent as he pretty much only uses the Japanese wrestlers in title matches. I think there's a reason it's failed, it's been poorly marketed and it's booked poorly. Honestly, the only times I heard about it are when Mike Quackenbush would mention wrestling for them on the Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe podcast.

I don't pirate any wrestling. I'm not for it. I just think Gabe is going after that as an excuse for his failures with both promotions. As I mentioned earlier, Chikara seems to be doing just fine despite people pirating their stuff. But then again, Chikara is a better product. My other point is that DGUSA is like the last hold out on wanting $20 for a DVD and that hurts them. I don't buy many DVDs at $20 anymore, I do buy DVDs at $15 though. Maybe Gabe should consider selling his DVDs at a market competitive price and he might sell more.