jdw

If you're asking whether someone else could have been a 5 year anchor at that time, other than Bruno... no one could have. If you're asking whether someone could have pulled off a year or so as a Face Champ until they found someone, then Dusty could have. I don't see Dusty holding things together for 5 years... he just didn't have the feel of an NY Champ (Bruno to Pedro to Bruno to Bob to Hogan). But he certainly could have popped for a while. The reason I don't see Dusty sustaining it for five years on top is that part of what made him work was often chasing rather than anchoring. Put the belt on him for 5 years (or even 1+1+1+1 with some breaks of 3 months in there) would take away from what he tended to play best. John

Thanks for the post, Jose!

Hell... I don't want to crap on other people's fun over there. It's not like they're actually discussing the content of it at all. :/

Hell... I didn't even know there was one.

The joke practically writes itself. John

If we're talking about a true Mt Rushmore comparison, one of the four would have to be ludicrously out of place and not belong. The Teddy Roosevelt. So, we'd have something like Flair, Hogan, Lawler, and Ivan Putski. Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_ra..._survey_results 1948 Schlesinger Poll 1. Abraham Lincoln 2. George Washington 3. Franklin D. Roosevelt 4. Woodrow Wilson 5. Thomas Jefferson 6. Andrew Jackson 7. Theodore Roosevelt It was authorized in 1925 in the Coolidge admin, and started in 1927. That's a bit close to Wilson, and it's highly unlikely that Wilson was well loved but the Cool admin. FDR hadn't been President yet. Once you get past Jackson and Teddy, it gets thin on candidates at that time. Teddy typically is rated higher than Jackson, and is pretty consistently around #5 in the historical rankings. Putski is probably akin to Millard Fillmore.

It's isn't impossible, just like it isn't impossible that Vince, Pat and Hulk had a three-way in the locker room before Wrestlemania 3. I mean... no one has denied that they had a threesome, and they were all in the same building together! Seriously, what Dylan said. There is not evidence. Just speculation by people whose sources are liars in a lying business talking about three people who are lying nuts.

It wasn't an exaggeration. It was a central part of the Original Version of the Story: Sleaze Thread: As was that it was the reason Macho got fired. Dave writing about it means... what? Dave just wrote about Kobashi where a number of things were factually wrong. Now it's possible two things happened: - Dave did the research Which means Dave's research was shit. That's possible, but doesn't seem likely. Some of the stuff I pointed to was kind of obscure, and hard to find / takes some effort to find. It's not the stuff he'd look up. - someone told Dave these "facts" Okay... so Someone fucked up on what they gave Dave. Happens. All the fucking time. So Dave writing about something isn't evidence of Fact. :/ I don't think Lanny wants to touch that one. What good can come of it? Actually, I thought Bix's found out that Dave didn't learn of this until after it popped up in the Sleaze Thread... which was a really fucking old thread. "By gawd, Dave... Savage fucked Steph up the ass!" "Don't tell anyone you got this from me, but... Steph tossed Macho's salad." I mean... it's the wrestling business. They're wrong about shit all the time. "Obama hasn't shown his birth certificate. He's a Keynan Muslim Socialist!" John

What did Meltzer write about Hennig? I think I read that bio years ago but forgot the details. I remember something like Meltzer interviewing Ken Patera, who said he'd golf with Hennig, who'd take 20 pain pills, smoke several joints, and drink a six-pack all by 12 PM. Is that what you're referring to? It's been years since I've read it as well. But I wasn't making an analogy of: Barr's Dirt = Curt's Dirt = Pillman's Dirt Because obviously Dave didn't write about Pillman committing statutory rape. He just wrote openly about Pillman being an addict and other fucked up things about what a mess his life was. Given the "wrestling stories" in quotes, my recollection is that it was some stuff that made Curt come across as an asshole or drunken asshole. I don't recall if it was the Clique level of shitting in Sunny's food, but some such nonsense like that that (i) wasn't the type of stuff Dave usually put in obits, (ii) wasn't really needed, (iii) was unflattering to Curt. As far as Dope, that's something Dave always talked about in obits once he got down his Obit Format, and started running into so many people dropping dead because of dope. So talking about Curt doing dope never would have stood out to me.

BTW... maybe Dave can win his Pulitzer with a little investigative journalism on Savage Banged Young Steph.

Savage thread was here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=8488 Rumor stuff starts up part way through page one. I loved how it morphed as original "facts" proved factually incorrect (i.e. Steph's age, that it was the reason Macho was fired, etc) to the point that I was able to drop the Jumbo Was Lazy spot in it in reference to another Wrestling Story that kept morphing as one version after another was factually incorrect, so it needed to be revised to a New Truth. Don't jump ahead because you need the context of the name being dropped earlier in the thread, but as a teaser: my favorite part of the thread is on Page 9 when two years later Bix drags over new comments by Oliver Copp that was generate a (i) a WTF?!?! moment based on Dave's earlier citing of Oliver as the Keeper of The Truth on the story, and (ii) a multi-poster kicking in the nuts of Oliver for what a douchebag he was in what he said. "I had no idea Oliver hated women so much." -Bix Oh... and SLL's post diagnosing Vince was an all-time classic. John

I like the use of Timberlake for a better current analogy. I date myself with the Jackson 5 and the Supremes.

We have a Savage thread that talks about it and pretty much shreds it as a bullshit story/theory. John

He's one of the two greatest pro wrestlers of all-time. If he can't be on the Mt Rushmore for his decade of dominance, that it isn't a pro wrestling Mt Rushmore.

There is no category for a given year where his work would warrant it. It's not some kind of Lifetime Achievement Award. Seriously... take a spin through the categories and try to figure out where Dave would ever product work in a given year that would warrant being submitted. There are always some stupid shit winners like Friedman and Dowd. But if you look at the typical reporting awards, they are at a level of stories that Dave doesn't touch. Hell, the great black hole of 30 years of the WON is Investigative Reporting... which Dave just doesn't do. :/

Obviously Hogan would be one of the 4: - original WWF run There are quite a few matches from MSG and the Spectrum available of his, along with Shea and TV squashes. A pair of title challenges, along with the major feud with Andre - 1980-85 NJPW Run There are something like 65+ matches of his available on tape/dvd. I'm not talking about how many that aired, but have't popped up: I mean that are available if someone wanted to track them down. There's aren't remotely close to that number of matches available from Japan for Flair or Bock or Backlund in the 80s. In fact, there probably aren't that many available for all three if you add them together. - 1981-83 AWA run KHawk could go over this, but it's safe to say it wasn't insignificant at all. - 1984-89 WWF run Well... the most important run in the modern history of pro wrestling... in the post WWII history of pro wrestling... well... quite possibly ever. It alone is worth a spot on the 80s Mt Rushmore. The point of the other stuff was just to get across that his 1980-83 wasn't an airball, but instead full of strong stuff on it's own. Then he took it to another level. The 2-4 guys are closer together than any of them to Hogan... the #2 might be closer to #10 than he is to Hogan.

There's a Terry thread down the page. I think the point of this forum was to try to group things under one thread, unless it's something like Bret vs Flair.

Did Dave ever finish his History of the WWF Title and History of WCW pieces?

The tricky parts on this are: * in the Hogan Era there were multiple cards * they scaled back to one card per night * Brand-Split / reduced cards per week / Live TV Tapings On the first, Hogan could be drawing 10K a night while Flair-Piper and Savage-Roberts are drawing 5K... or a heck of a lot less. On the second, in the One Show era, the Champ gets all the credit of the one show without the drag of the B-Show or C-Shows. On the third... it gets muddy: - The Brand Split meant 2 champs So one champ is getting credit for all of it, despite that specific belt bouncing across shows & pushes. - Raw would run Fri-Mon and SD would run Sat-Tue It's likely easier to draw on the weekend when kids don't have to go to school the next day. We certainly see this with the movie Box Office - it's a massive difference. - Live TV bumps I'm about 100% certain that if we studied the attendance numbers in terms of sellouts, we'll find that especially after the peak that Raw and SD tapings held their attendance better than non-tapings. People have been trained to come out to be on TV. What that does with the numbers if broken out to look just at the cards with the Champs... hard to tell. A crapload of work if you don't have the card-by-card attendance data already in spreadsheets, Chris. On the other hand... if you do have it, and back to what you can pull from the 80s... it might make for an interesting look also at the various Hogan Dynasties, Savage's first run, and Warrior's run. Again... it would break them away from the secondary cards that might not be drawing. In addition, you might be able to break the two titles off into their own lines during the true Brand Split Era.

If I were Machiavellian about it, I would: * identify who is the Michael Jackson / Diana Ross of the group * start scripting a higher % of The Shield stuff to make him look good * get his ear on how the rest are holding him back * split him off Then you can: * slow the push of the other two still in the "group" * have the Star beat the other two like clockwork to "win" the feud * then once he's on his own... more easily cut his legs off That doesn't always work. Rock got over in the NOD. Trip tried to beat him. Rock got split off. He was too over to hold back. But... Trip didn't have as much power back then as he does now. In fact, very little... other than someone Vince liked and wasn't entirely adverse to listen to his thoughts. Now, Trip is the God of Thunder of the WWE to Vince's All Father. John

FWIW, Kobashi 1990-94 career has been covered better *here* in the Yearbook threads... and it's not like anyone is trying really hard to cover that part of his career specifically. It's just stuff that's popped up in discussions. It's a bit disappointing since Dave has known of Kobashi's retirement for months, had time to hammer this out, and you'd kind of think that even factoring me out of the equation that he'd have at least one person he knows who could (i) fact check, and (ii) add more to 5 key developmental years. You know... the years where the "greatest wrestler of all-time" point that he spends time on actually began. John

Eh... Except he didn't. Wait... So what was on top of that card? That's right... Baba & Hansen vs Kawada & Taue. Note: there were other times where Dave correctly called something "co-main event" at Budokan. The 12/10/94 card, the Final Night of the Year, was a co-main event situation with those tags. Earlier... He didn't "lose" his first 63 singles matches. He actually was "winless"... and it was in his first 65 singles matches. He had 63 losses and 2 DCOR before beating Snow. So this is one that I knew generally off the top of my head without having to look up the details: Kobashi and Taue debuted extremely close together as part of the same general class. Taue beat Kobashi early and often, including in their rookie years. This isn't hard. Details in case someone thinks I'm blowing smoke: Akira Taue: debuted January 2, 1988 Kenta Kobashi: "debuted" February 26, 1988 http://www.purolove.com/noah/kobashi/kobashi88.php #0063 | 16.07.1988 @ Takamatsu Citizen Bunka Center: - Akira Taue besiegt Kenta Kobashi (10:33) mit einem Blockbuster. #0071 | 27.07.1988 @ Nagano Citizen Gymnasium: - Akira Taue besiegt Kenta Kobashi (7:19) mit einem Blockbuster Wait, this is even more entertaining: Kenta Kobashi: "debuted" February 26, 1988 Dustin Rhodes: debut September 13, 1988 http://www.purolove.com/noah/kobashi/kobashi89.php #0164 | 08.04.1989 @ Ebino Worker Center: - Dusty Rhodes Jr. besiegt Kenta Kobashi (12:25) mit einem Diving Elbow Drop I'm fearful of looking at much of the rest. 1991 doesn't exist in the bio, 1992 exists just in the form of teaming with Baba in the Tag Tourney and Jumbo going out and 1993 exists just in the form of pinning Kawada in the Final Match Of The Year. 3 years of Kobashi growth largely glossed over with a "he was kinda growing in the years" coverage. Okay... another peak... Oh dear god... Kobashi spike business up in All Japan in 1998 when winning the Triple Crown? Wait a fucking minute. Misawa was going to take a long time off. Not just off of holding the TC, but off of working to heal up his banged up body. Instead, he was rushed back after just *two* Budokans that he didn't appear on: Kawada vs Kobashi and Kobashi vs Akiyama. Then as he was returning, Misawa was very clear that he wasn't going to be challenging for the TC (and signaling it was Kobashi's time to show what he had)... except that Baba not only booked him into the 10/98 Budokan to challenge for the title, but booked Misawa to win it back from Kobashi. Those weren't Misawa's call: it was the pressure of business being bad to force him back early, and then Baba wanting the belt off Kobashi and back in Misawa. Yeah... this is "Dave at his best" doing an "All Japan Bio/Obit". It's up there with the ones on Baba, Jumbo and Misawa as being disappointing... and that's as kindly as I can put it. :/ John

Oh, I agree that the shift from WP --> RE wasn't done to go incognito. It's just that the rep of WP went with him to RE. And now that folks know GP = RE = WP, it's not like the name change to GP offers a new beginning anymore. I could change my name from jdw to something else. Once folks know that name is jdw, there's 17 years of online baggage that gets attached to it.

Yeah, Doug did seem good with his money from what I recall Dave saying. Don't know about Phil. One would expect. Still, when you effectively stop working and making a decent income at the age of 35/36, now 16 years later... it's could get rough. People who make a heck of a lot more have run into issues when what seemed like reasonable investments go bad. My recollection is that the last I read about Phil was that he was working on a degree in social work, which is pretty nice given Doug's work.

They would have fit in best in the US if someone grabbed them in say 1989 (after the 6/89 Budokan) or in 1990, and stuck them with a good manager who could do the talking. After that... it's hard to say when they would have fit in. Like Loss says, tag team work died off in the US, as did the use of *useful* managers. They also were making a good living in Japan at a time when money was iffy in the US for midcarders. It's one reason why they took so long for leaving Japan: they needed to make a certain $$$ amount in the US to leave, and that number didn't come up until the moment they left for the WWF. And the WWF only got interested when they worked some spots in ECW. They basically were an 80s Tag Team with 90s moves / pacing. They really into the 80s style better, and then the 00s style outside of the WWE. Just came along at the wrong time. Or the right time, if they were good with their money (which is a big if). They made good money in All Japan for a long time, Baba took care of them, and they worked a lot less to make that money than a lot of the US peers. It was a brutal style, and they were broken down by the end of it... so there is a tradeoff there that's iffy, though. :/