Al

Interesting concept. I'm looking forward to seeing what some of our posters produce.

Taking a shot at this... Cactus Jack vs. Tommy Dreamer October 28, 1995 This match ended up as one of the most famous matches in ECW history, for reasons I will discuss shortly. Cactus comes out first and cuts a promo berating the fans. Cactus was on his anti-hardcore roll at this point, informing the fans that if it was up to him he would rather sit home and watch "movies for guys who like movies." He then informs the fans that they better prepare themselves for the most boring match of their lives. The feud here is that Cactus Jack wants Tommy Dreamer to reject the ECW fans and join WCW, essentially not to make the same mistakes Cactus did in leaving. On video, the scene cuts to Tommy Dreamer's retrospective. The match is clipped, switching between the match and Dreamer's comments on the match afterwards. Again, I will hit upon the reason for this afterwards. Back in the ring, Dreamer is joined by his mentor, Terry Funk. I'm going to skip the retrospectives here on. Cactus and Dreamer lock up, Cactus pushes Dreamer into the ropes, and we have a clean break. The early portion here sees Cactus refusing to do anything but simple wrestling manuevers, as Dreamer tries goad Cactus into a fistfight. At this point, Cactus grabs a side headlock. After a few minutes of that, the match goes to the floor, and again goes for the side headlock. Back in the ring, Cactus works the arm, before Dreamer grabs Cactus by the crotch and suplexes him. Dreamer clotheslines Cactus onto the floor, and hits him with the chair. Now here, the roles in the match are well played out. Cactus Jack is doing his best to wrestle and bore the fans, while Tommy Dreamer is doing his best to drag Cactus into his type of brawl. The problem here is that with the standard face/heel roles, Dreamer is not going to be the good guy for hitting Cactus with a chair while Cactus refuses to fight dirty. So we quickly see a solution to this problem. Raven runs down the isle and hits Dreamer with a chair. Cactus jumps on the apron, and tries to work a WCW chant, instead of hitting the running elbowdrop. Finally, Cactus starts brawling with Dreamer in the ring, and gets the best with him. Cactus gets the best of Dreamer, and pounds the tar out of him in the ring, as the fans chant "we want blood." After a few minutes of this, Cactus slugs Dreamer, and hurts his hand. Cactus grabs the mike, and states that he made a vow never to wrestle hurt again in front of the fans. And since he dislocated a finger, he asks that the match be declared "no contest," and asks the fans to "support the Turner family tomorrow night." (That would be Halloween Havoc '95). The referee informs Cactus that he will not declare a no contest, and Cactus tells him to count him out. Clipped again, and next we see one of Terry Funk's best moments, as he does his best to goad Cactus Jack back to the match. "C'mon Cactus. Your mother's a whore! C'Mon. C'mon! C'mon back here Cactus! Your old lady's a whore! Your girlfriend's a whore! Dewey's a whore! C'mon Cactus, you gutless piece of crap! You piece of shit! You piece of slime!" Cactus runs back to brawl, and Tommy gets the better of Cactus, and hits the piledriver. And after the opening moments to set up the story, now we finally have a full-fledged match. Dreamer hits an enziguri with his leg in a chair. Cactus manages to flip Dreamer to the outside, and Raven hits the DDT. Funk fights with Raven, and Cactus chairs Funk. Clips, and we come back to Funk brawling with Cactus Jack. Richards attempts to superkick Funk, and the distraction is enough for Cactus to get the advantage on Funk. Back in the ring, Raven fights with Dreamer, and hits him with brass knuckles. Cactus steps in the ring, and Raven tapes the brass knuckles to Cactus' boot, and then Cactus kicks Funk in the groin. Clips, as we have Cactus attempting to defeat Dreamer, as Raven instructs Cactus via the house microphone. This is a nice job of working the feuds together, as Raven is using Cactus to accomplish his own goals. Raven wants Cactus to use the chair, but Dreamer grabs a chair, hits Cactus, and lands the DDT for the win. Afterwards, Raven runs in and attacks Dreamer as Cactus DDTs the referee. We then go back to Dreamer cutting a post-match promo for November To Remember. The interesting circumstance with this match is not what we saw, but what we did NOT see. For those of you unaware, this is the infamous "fire chair" match. The fire chair was never mentioned on ECW television, and was entirely absent from the match itself. I am honestly unsure of what point in the match the incident occured. In fact, Terry's flaming branding iron is absent, as well as any mention or appearance of Bill Alfonso. I can not judge this match as anything other than a historical oddity. Cactus Jack's early actions in the match do a great deal to establish his heel character, but then the match denegrates into the typical mindless ECW brawl. I'd be remiss if I didn't quote Joey Styles for an instant, hyping November To Remember '95... "Terry Funk, in what will no doubt be one of his LAST matches, before retirement..."

Agreed. I can't see taking either team over the LOD.

I have never heard of Toyonobori before. Is he of any significance, or just a case of being the best available in a dead period?

My apologies. Perhaps my lack of perspective on the latino crowd kept my interest lower than it should have been.

I watched Eddy/JBL. I don't have the energy or skills to break it down like Loss or Tim Cooke, but I'll post some quick thoughts. I agree that this is a good match. The storytelling is there, and it is solid. However, I can not shake the feeling that something is missing. Some overall "excitement factor" that is absent from the match. I do not have anything to pick apart in the match in particular. Overall, I'd give it ***1/2 stars. Better than SKeith thinks, but I fear the Smart crowd might be overrating this one a tad. We'll see how it holds up over time. I could be wrong.

I can't imagine how Sonny Siaki feels right now, although it is not certain that injury led to Candido's death. I haven't seen this brought up before, and I think it deserves attention. Sports Illustrated ran an article in its February 28, 2005 edition. On page 50, SI ran an article about a new strand of staph infection that attacked athletes, and that it affected those infected at an alarmingly high speed. So you make a few reasonable connections. Serious injury, potentially unsanitary locker rooms and wrestling environment (I doubt this is a high priority to a mid-range wrestling outlet such as TNA) and one can see where a problem may have occured. Obviously, this is not the only possibility.

Could part of the buyrate have been the unusally fun commercials for the event?

I'll spare the format of quoting everything in the post, as I think this will make things easier to read. I am sure Loss will provide his thoughts, but I would like to express my two cents. First off, the blood. Yes, there is no blood, and that might take away from the concept of the blood feud. However, I think this is a case where you are reviewing the match you wanted to see, rather than the match you actually saw. First off, this feud at this point was floating into a respect feud. Funk stated that he would shake Flair's hand if he lost, which he did. I do not know what version of the match you saw, but Funk did effectively turn face after the match. Previous matches would have blown off the initial steam, and here we have a case where it is a matter of pride, and not necessarily bloodshed. The mid-match promo more than had its place. As you might recall, Funk injured Flair's neck six months earlier, and Flair nearly retired. So when Funk threatens to piledrive Flair and injure his neck again, that has meaning. The pieldrivers do slow down Flair. That he specifically does not sell them is not an immediate detriment to the match. In kayfabe terms, we would learn that those moves luckily caused no serious injuries, so other than lingering pain, what is there that Flair has to sell to tell a story? You mentioned the lack of weapons. Jim Ross and Gordon Solie state during the match that the microphone was not supposed to be used as a weapon. You have to remember that in the late 1980s the introduction of any foreign object was a MAJOR, major turning point in a wrestling match. It wasn't like today where foreign objects are expected and commonplace. And in pre-match promos, Funk stated that he did not want Gary Hart's help. At the end, the Figure Four is sold as a move that could break Funk's leg. Funk quit before his leg was broken. Afterwards, it would be sore, but no major damage. And if you have seen Terry Funk lately, his knee is in constant pain, and he still manages. Why could he not walk after the match, and he was walking gingerly on the leg. If he was not, then it was not obvious enough to notice. You state several times the lack of blood is a problem. To me, that is not much different from Scott Keith decided he does not like JBL as a main-eventer, and basing his opinion off of that. All good brawls do not have to involve blood. To me, this was a match that provides a different approach to the brawl. And I think it works.

I'm in.

The Brainbusters were hardly in the WWF long enough to make a real impact, I think. Tajiri seems misplaced on that list as well. I would suggest adding Jimmy Snuka.

How about this. If you were a booker, who would you put over? Would you take the proven draw? (i.e. Austin or Hogan). In the absense of one of those guys, would you take a superior worker? What about a worker with less ability but more charisma? That kind of takes all factors into account.

The demise of WCW was always monetary. WCW overpaid for big name stars and no amount of success could pay the bills. And Time Warner did not have the patience to dump those stars and built around unproven draws.

I'll back up Loss for this one. People came to WCW to watch the NWo, and then Goldberg. When WCW put out a truckload of merchandise, how much of it marketed those terrific wrestlers of theirs'? Fans like us appreciated the great matches at times, but most casual fans do not come around primarily for the matches. Most casual fans are not aware of the nuances that make a great match or a boring match. This think, this wrestler was cool, or that wrestler was fun. Look at WWE. They didn't have that many noticeably great wrestlers in the late 1990s, but they did have Steve Austin and The Rock. They drew huge. But when Benoit & Company arrived, did the fans stick around as the in-ring product improved? They left soon after their favorites left. Star power draws fans. I haven't seen much evidence to suggest that workrate does. In the same manner that the art movies are played in the small cinemas while the big name movies like "Big Mammas House" somehow draw the big crowds.

Whether every cage match had blood in it or not, or even if only a few had blood in them, having so many in such a short period of time would have killed the specialness of the gimmick, regardless of how much blood was or was not involved. I made the same point awhile back, while watching the Bloodbath dvd. NWA got to the point where every feud had a cage match, and sometimes multiple cage matches. Ronnie Garvin won the title from Ric Flair in a cage, and then Flair won it back in another cage. It was overkill.

Anyone who thinks they have found the perfect formula for a 100% accurate star rating probably needs a dose of sunshine. Star ratings are subjective, and can and SHOULD vary depending on a person's view of a match. Different people have different tastes. The same way some people like action flicks, some like dramas, and some like suspense. Another problem with star ratings is that they often become the sole arbitrator of value in a wrestling match. Matches like Hogan/Andre (WM III), Snuka/Muraco (MSG Cage) and the like do not have gaudy star ratings, but they are historically important, and for some reason can still be more fun and satisfying to watch than matches with better workrate. I try to ditch star ratings entirely when I discuss wrestling. I think it leads to better discussions, rather than slap fights between posters trying to fight over that final *.

It wasn't just Loss, it's an accumulation of what I've heard over the last few months. Loss put it over the top though.

I've heard enough. I'm seeking this match out!

Uh oh. I read about a similar case in the Bill James Abstract, regarding the Andy Messersmith case (which overthrew the reserve clause). Basically, one aspect of contract law is that the party that draws up the contract has the responsibility of spelling this stuff out. Anyone else can correct me on this, but I would think this goes in Lesnar's favor. I'm not sure it's a good idea to put opposition wrestlers in the same ring with your guys, for the same reasons I spelled out in the Edge/Matt Hardy thread. Still remains to be seen what they do. Of course, all corporations say they like competition, but do not mean it. Given that Animal did some work for the dvd, I'd be very surprised if the Warriors are not inducted.

This seems odd, but the quality of the posts, and their lengths, can be somewhat intimidating. Sometimes I don't like to stop in this folder unless I know I have time to read all the good stuff. That is not a negative comment by any means, just an observation. It's a bitch to keep up with you guys! As for the All-Time Tournament, WWE produced a magazine with their top 50 of all-time, so that seems like a good starting point, if you run with it. The big question would be how much attention do you pay to the '60s and '70s, when heels of the month would challenge the champion and then move around the country. There wasn't a set roster of guys then as there are today.

A wrestling match requires two men to put a great deal of trust in each others' hands. I cannot see anything good coming from putting a match together with those involved.

I think Hogan is more responsible for that than the WWE, honestly. If Hogan had stuck around for years without taking a break, I am sure his role would be significantly altered as well. But Hogan is a savvy businessman like that. And full credit to Ric Flair for being perhaps the only wrestling "legend" from the Monday Night Wars to continue working regularly. Hogan, Hall, Nash, Savage, Page, Goldberg, Austin, etc. took their paychecks and went home, but we still have Flair.

I thought the chiefdom was just some rumor that floated around for awhile, wasn't it?