khawk20

Had a discussion about this via e-mail and the question was posed to me about whether or not Ray Stevens was the primary influence of the "Pinball" style of bumping, taking such bumps as the upside-down-turnbuckle roll (ala Flair), or holding the ropes and getting your leg kicked so you go flying upwards (ala Hennig). A lot of guys that worked in the late 70's and 80's that employed some form of the Pinball style as their styles developed (such as Adrian Adonis, or Curt Hennig) would have had exposure to Stevens in their formative years, so I can see them learning from him. Bobby Heenan would certainly have picked up a lot of how he bumped from watching and working with Stevens. When you consider that the bumping style from the 50's seems a lot different than what it developed into in the next few decades, it would not surprise me if Stevens was the originator of a lot of that style. Did Stevens originate a lot of those bumps? If not who were his influences?

Help. I've been trying to rip some AWA stuff off of youtube and I've read keepvid is the way to go. Trouble is it seems to want to install a toolbar when you try to download it and the last thing I need is another toolbar. Any way around that? It doesn't look like one of those install screens that you can uncheck and still get the program but not the toolbar, it looks to be built into the process. ...also wondering how this program is for converting stuff to mpeg1 or mpeg2 fro mit's original video file. I ask about those ones specifically because I'm using an authoring program (an older one) that wants the video in one of those two formats. Any help on the subject feel free to answer here or PM me if you don't want to clutter things up here. thanks.

Probably, but no necessarily. Lots of time for further announcements and additions, I would think. I didn't/don't believe Hunter will be successful anyway, even if he's still trying to get him into this year's class.

Well, when Buddy got hungry.... Oh, wait, wrong Rose. My apologies.

I watched some of RF's Mad Dog Vachon shoot interview last night while re-working my Mad Dog set. It pissed me off that nobody did an extensive shoot with Maurice before he started to decline as badly as he has (I think that int is at least two years old). RF seemed to actually be asking questions that were suitable for Vachon and his time frame, but Vachon is no longer in good enough shape to answer them very well. There's a long diatribe from someone there with Maurice (probably a caregiver) off-camera at one point about how Maurice was having trouble with some questions because he was fatigued, but done in a way that the guy was talking about Vachon like he wasn't even in the room. Is it too hard to edit that sort of shit out? A truly sad experience to watch. If it was done even 5 years ago it could have been excellent, Maurice was a great storyteller and had a really good memory about the guys he worked with and the territories he visited. Now I'd recommend avoiding it just for the sadness factor. Getting old sucks.

Thanks. Odd (to me) that I don't remember seeing it.

Intercontinental Championship Match Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair New Haven, Connecticut • November 13, 1991 ...has this one aired before? Also Classics on Demand is listing a December 1978 show from Stampede this month, so maybe bits of that 2/3 with Dynamite may air on that first.

Haku as King Tonga from 84-86, turning finally to Haku in the WWF, *might* go as his prime in my eyes. Worked at the top of the card in Montreal, was a top challenger in the AWA for Martel and was an overall big player there. So, maybe 84 through his time as the King? In terms of his "Prime" as a wrestler, maybe. You almost have to look at his time as Meng as a completely separate entity.

Searching for rare clips or matches has kept me interested for a long time and continues to do so. AWA stuff is my main focus, but anything rare and/or new is great to find and watch for the first time. Depending on how much time I have to dedicate to them, my AWA and Wrestler projects can keep me very busy. My stuff is more "niche" than the things guys like Will put out, but because I'm doing them more as a record for myself first and foremost, I never feel any sort of pressure to get something done and as such can work at it at my own pace. I'm finally re-working my Mad Dog Vachon set, for example, and what I thought was a decent finished product a couple of years ago has me tearing it apart and reworking it, and also including a lot of new footage (sometimes waiting is good), and that keeps me invested in doing this stuff....it stays relaxing and fun. I'm challenging myself to make it better. Finding and acquiring footage is still a lot of fun and the rarer a really good find is, the more fun the search is.

Blanchard: Sure Rich: No Martel: No, at this point in his career. Bret: No, as per my other reply DiBiase: If you get him pre-Million $$ man, possibly Windham: Sure Savage: No, already a McMahon guy and, like Bret, they wouldn't want someone from McMahonland due to the perception of it all (still a relevant factor in the choice to be made in 1988, IMO) Hennig: Sure Taylor: No

re: Replacing Flair in 1988 Not sure if 88 is early enough that Bret would have been considered for the spot. I believe he was still 90% a tag guy, and the perception of a tag wrestler from the WWF coming in to win the NWA World Title probably would have excluded him from the thought process. Any replacement for Flair at that time would have had to be established outside of the WWF and probably a singles guy to boot. Curt Hennig was the AWA Champion at that time and a terrific wrestler, for example, and I could see him being considered to step in.

I dunno about that. It's sort of like asking how we would rate Flair if he had never been NWA Champion, wouldn't it?

I like swearing (fuck fuck fuck) I would never argue that Bret wasn't repetitive personally. Again, it comes down to how crisp Bret's moves were. Even in situations where it was the same move over and over, the way they looked over-rode the idea that it was a standard Bret spot. The face-first turnbuckle run, for example, looked painful and hard charging every time he did it (which seemed to be every match). Likewise with the elbow from the second rope you mentioned, and the leg sweep. Not a lot of Flair's repetitive spots had the same effect of looking painful and/or as snug as Bret's did. When watching a lot of matches of someone, that factor makes a difference for me. And, to note, my Bret vs. Flair comparison is based on matches I've watched alone. I'm not counting in promos or promo ability.

Matt is once again correct.

Jerry, sometimes I envision you wandering wround your house, wringing your hands and grabbing at your temples yelling "BRET HART!?!?! BRET FUCKING HART!?!?!? ARGLE-BARGLE-PODCAST-MUMBLE-MUMBLE!!!!" before collapsing in a heap on the floor, possibly in a puddle of some expelled body fluid. I like Bret better right now and a I briefly explained why. I'm not big on long, deep explanations most of the time (save for the odd AWA diatribe), so you'll have to trust that my opinion is based on 35 years of watching wrestling and subject to change depending on the day. If that seems disgraceful to you, so be it.

....to add for those that don't mind a differing opinion than their own, I've seen tons of both guys throughout almost the entirety of their careers, both as it happened and later via video. I enjoy the work of both guys immensely, but Bret gets the nod slightly because he seemed more the "crisp" performer of the two. I'm not sure how to explain that better, to be honest, except possibly to say Bret's offense and how he took a move seemed to be more "Believable" in terms of the damage it did to either his opponent or himself. Both guys are great and I love watching them both.

I voted for Bret. Fuck you, too.

Oh yeah. Lex had terrible booking back to his NWA days. They turned him and had him lose so many big ones, but he still was over. The "blood stoppage" loss to Flair was a killer, considering I think I've lost more blood cutting myself shaving. Not only did it make Luger look like a guy who can't win the big one, it made the promotion look silly as well. I looked at it is putting even more heat on Flair. JJ busts Luger open, a tiny trickle leads to a corrupt Maryland State Commissioner to save Flair's belt. I always wished they had called an audible of some sort, having Flair brain Luger from behind for a KO win by countout, something like that. Easy for me to say since that finish was so specifically booked an audible could have made it look even worse than it did if you have a "commissoner" declaring a stoppage due to blood while Luger is in the process of getting KOed or is lying outside the ring knocked out. Meh, maybe that still would have looked better.

No AWA stuff. I guess he wouldn't have seen the Bock-Hennig draw from a few weeks earlier yet since it didn't air until New Years Eve, but I would have thought someone would have seen it and reported about it to him.

We used to pick everyone, 1-30. Five points for every guy that enters in the spot you have him in. ten points if you pick the winner, bonus points if you pick certain numbers randomly drawn correctly (i.e. 4, 16, 23). We would also pick the undercard bouts like any standard pick 'em. We'd all throw in 5 or 10 bucks and divide to pay the top 3. Keep in mind there were usually 10-15 people watching it together back in the day. We used to do pick 'ems for all the PPVs but the Rumble was always the best one due to the big match.

That would be something like 10 matches a day, every day, for 30 years or so. (at least with my limited math skills and brain power at this time of the day it comes out to that....)