jdw

And to be clear: I love Firefly, and wish it had a nice 4 year run on cable at 14 or so episodes a year. I would have loved to have seen it have a 5 year run of 77 episodes like Leverage, or 5/60 like The Wire, or 8/125 like Monk... anything. But it didn't: it failed. :/ John

To be fair almost every show "fails". Most TV shows are cancelled; few end on their own terms. Twilight Zone and Star Trek, both typically regarded as the finest Sci-Fi shows ever produced, were both cancelled, were they failures? Twin Peaks was cancelled in season 2 and yet is still regarded as one of the greatest shows of all-time. The Honeymooners was cancelled after one season! I'm not sure your argument about TV shows is valid. Twilight Zone went 5 seasons, 150+ episodes. TZ's 5 season run was average at the time. ? Here are the shows that debuted in the 1959/60 on ABC, NBC and CBS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959%E2%80%93...vision_schedule 14 - Bonanza 5 - The Twilight Zone 4 - Dennis the Menace 4 - Hawaiian Eye 4 - Laramie 4 - The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis 4 - The Untouchables 3 - Adventures in Paradise 3 - The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor 3 - Hennesey 2 - The Deputy 2 - The DuPont Show with June Allyson 2 - The Rebel 2 - Riverboat 2 - Take a Good Look 1 - The Alaskans 1 - The Betty Hutton Show 1 - Bourbon Street Beat 1 - Charley Weaver's Hobby Lobby 1 - The Dennis O'Keefe Show 1 - Diagnosis: Unknown 1 - Dick Clark's World of Talent 1 - Fibber McGee and Molly 1 - Five Fingers 1 - Hotel de Paree 1 - John Gunther's High Road 1 - Johnny Ringo 1 - Johnny Staccato 1 - The Kate Smith Show 1 - Law of the Plainsman 1 - Love and Marriage 1 - The Man and the Challenge 1 - Men into Space 1 - Mr. Lucky 1 - NBC Sunday Showcase 1 - Overland Trail 1 - Philip Marlowe 1 - Startime 1 - Tightrope 1 - The Troubleshooters 1 - Wichita Town TZ was the second longest running debut of the year. The "average" length of those debuts was 2.05 seasons, which actually overstates the length: a lot of those "1 seasons" shows were like Firefly: pulled before completing their season, or midyear replacements. I didn't bother spending a lot of time looking at them since I just wanted to quick & dirty this, but even then I noticed one of those didn't even air the full slate of shows filmed... just like Firefly. 5 years was far from "average". TZ was "nearly cancelled", and then went on to have 3 full seasons, one year as a mid-season replacement, and then a 5th season as a fulltime show. Firefly got cancelled during the production of it first season, before that full season of episodes were produced, and Fox chose not to air 3 episodes it had in the can... for years. Are you seriously trying to tell me they're the same thing? 5-6 seasons isn't remotely average. Roughly 177 shows debuted in primetime during the time Twilight Zone was on the tube. They ran for roughly 374 seasons. That's an average of 2.11 seasons per new show. These are the shows that went longer than TZ: 14 Bonanza 12 My Three Sons 10 The Bell Telephone Hour 9 The Beverly Hillbillies 9 The Virginian 8 The Andy Griffith Show 7 Petticoat Junction 6 The Flintstones 6 Ben Casey 6 The Lucy Show Just 10 out of 177. These are the shows that went as long as TZ: 5 The Twilight Zone 5 The Dick Van Dyke Show 5 Dr. Kildare 5 Hazel 5 Combat! 5 The Andy Williams Show Six. By number of seasons: 4 - 16 shows 3 - 12 shows 2 - 24 shows 1 - 109 shows 109 of 177 shows were either cancelled in their first season, or didn't get a second season. The *average* TV show that debuted in the years TZ was on the air... didn't get a second season. Like Firefly. TZ's 5 years was well above average. Gunsmoke, Lassie, What's My Line, Ozzie and Harriet, The Danny Thomas Show... these aren't average shows. They, like Bonnaza and My Three Sons are abnormal shows.

To be fair almost every show "fails". Most TV shows are cancelled; few end on their own terms. Twilight Zone and Star Trek, both typically regarded as the finest Sci-Fi shows ever produced, were both cancelled, were they failures? Twin Peaks was cancelled in season 2 and yet is still regarded as one of the greatest shows of all-time. The Honeymooners was cancelled after one season! I'm not sure your argument about TV shows is valid. Twilight Zone went 5 seasons, 150+ episodes. Star Trek got saved to run a 3rd season and had 75+ episodes. You're misrepresenting the history of the Honeymooners: it was a Gleason skit on COS and TJGS the prior four seasons, with the last two seasons seeing the vast majority of skits being even longer than the "series" episodes were. By the end of the first season of the series, it was less "cancelled" than CBS and Gleason agreed to end it as a series and go back to TJGS. The Honeymooners skits appeared on most of the shows Gleason appeared on, obviously not on the ones with guests hosts. To a degree, it ran for 6 straight seasons, not 1. The first two as a key regular skit on Gleason's variety show, the next two as the dominant part of the show. Then broken out into it's own stand alone show, before being rolled back into a variety show format but before long becoming the dominant element of the show when Gleason was on it. That's not even getting into Gleason going to the well with it another 60+ times in the 60s, 70s and 80s on various shows of his and specials. That's all part of the legend of the Honeymooners, rather than limiting it to the "Classic 39". I'm sure if I asked my folks when I'm down there for Mothers Day about the Honeymooners, they talk about TJGS skits as well as the series, and my Dad would likely mention Cavalcade just because his memory of all that stuff remains sharp (don't even get him started one the dozens of Westerns form the 50s and 60s ). One of the reasons they agreed to cancel the Honeymooners is because it went from the #2 show to the #19 show within one season. That is a massive drop in viewership over the course of one season. Sure. It also went right back to being an anchor of TJGS, making it the fifth straight year it was fixture in CBS' lineup, on top of the year before on another network. John

To be fair almost every show "fails". Most TV shows are cancelled; few end on their own terms. Twilight Zone and Star Trek, both typically regarded as the finest Sci-Fi shows ever produced, were both cancelled, were they failures? Twin Peaks was cancelled in season 2 and yet is still regarded as one of the greatest shows of all-time. The Honeymooners was cancelled after one season! I'm not sure your argument about TV shows is valid. Twilight Zone went 5 seasons, 150+ episodes. Star Trek got saved to run a 3rd season and had 75+ episodes. You're misrepresenting the history of the Honeymooners: it was a Gleason skit on COS and TJGS the prior four seasons, with the last two seasons seeing the vast majority of skits being even longer than the "series" episodes were. By the end of the first season of the series, it was less "cancelled" than CBS and Gleason agreed to end it as a series and go back to TJGS. The Honeymooners skits appeared on most of the shows Gleason appeared on, obviously not on the ones with guests hosts. To a degree, it ran for 6 straight seasons, not 1. The first two as a key regular skit on Gleason's variety show, the next two as the dominant part of the show. Then broken out into it's own stand alone show, before being rolled back into a variety show format but before long becoming the dominant element of the show when Gleason was on it. That's not even getting into Gleason going to the well with it another 60+ times in the 60s, 70s and 80s on various shows of his and specials. That's all part of the legend of the Honeymooners, rather than limiting it to the "Classic 39". I'm sure if I asked my folks when I'm down there for Mothers Day about the Honeymooners, they talk about TJGS skits as well as the series, and my Dad would likely mention Cavalcade just because his memory of all that stuff remains sharp (don't even get him started one the dozens of Westerns form the 50s and 60s ). Firefly got cancelled before it's first season was done, with just 14 episodes produced, of which Fox chose to air only 11... not to mention butchered the airing order. There's a difference between getting cancelled like say CSI: Miami did after 220+ episodes and 10 seasons, including several years of allegedly being the most popular tv show in the world... and bombing out before you get a season done. The show Profit was pretty freaking choice, was well ahead of its time in edginess... but it got pulled after 4 episodes, and it was years before the remaining four episodes saw the light of say in the US. I'm wildly entertained by the show, but it's not a GOAT candidate.

Neil is close. It was widely covered, both on TV and in magazines and in newspapers. But: * it was pro wrestling, so no one gave a shit * the key to the story was Hogan, and his leaving killed off the little legs it had * 1991/92 wasn't 1984-86, so the overall attention given to pro wrestling was low Things broke well in the sense of events to make it not have legs. Media outlets would do their one story on it, then move on.

The channel quite possibly wouldn't have been profitable at the start due to start up costs and finding revenue streams, depending upon what path they chose to go with. Profits sucked out of the company into the McMahon's pockets via dividends could have covered those losses. Let alone the money pissed down the drain on WWE Movies. $540M covers a lot of losses.

This. I think we all can point to a number of good / really good lumberjack matches. But there are a lot that were really bad / boring, with a "If you've seen one lumberjack match you've seen every lumberjack match" feel to them. It's not a bad gimmick... but a cliched / tired on. That does tend to make the good ones stand out.

And at what point in ECW's run did it hit the equiv of the third season of Veronica Mars? John

I really have to laugh at the WWE pissing $540M+ away over the past decade on dividends, most of it going into Vince and Linda's pockets, $100M of which Linda lit up with a match in her two insane attempts to become a Senator. That's $54M a *year*. In the peak three years of paying out (2008-10), it was $247M total. It's not that the WWE "couldn't" pull off a network because of outside forces. It's simply because they have been too stupid to. John

I think it's the job of both the promoter and booker (and of course wrestlers) to Draw Money. We can not absolve any of them of failure by pointing up the food chain. As far as Heyman generating interest in his product, it's likely vastly overrated. That WE gave a shit about it doesn't mean that a mass of fans did. I also think we get a little too narrow when we think Heyman was just trying to charge the windmill that is Vince to have been successful. Thank of it in these terms: Mad Men doesn't draw what American Idol does. It doesn't draw what Sunday Night NFL does. It frankly doesn't have a drawing pot to piss in relative to TV shows that Really, Really, Really Draw. On the other hand... Mad Men draws a good number of fans relative to it's channel, and relative to cable in general. For AMC, it's a massive hit. It appears to be a massive hit for Lions Gate. There are degrees to being successful. The problem with Heyman as a promoter-booker is that he wasn't even able to reach the Mad Men level of success, let alone say a Burn Notice level of success before we even get to the NFL. I like Firefly. Can stumble upon it anytime and enjoy an episode. It's a really good TV show. But... I couldn't call it the greatest/best SciFi tv program of all time because in the end it failed. A large part of that was the promoter: Fox didn't really know what it had, and for a rare time didn't give it a lot of time to breath. But a large part of it has to go to the booker/creative: Joss, though he and his fans (I'm one of them) probably don't want to admit it. Joss made a massive mistake running the project on Fox rather than WB or UPN where Joss had success. I know UPN turned down the series *after* Fox cancelled it, but by that point it was too late... and the cost wasn't cheap. Which was likely the problem from the beginning: Joss wrote something that was a little pricey from the start, which needed a Fox (or Big 4 network) to back it when only the name Star Trek would get instant production cash from second tier networks at that point. Wonderful, arguably "great" series on some levels. But SciFi GOAT, or even candidate? It really can't be: it failed, to the point that it didn't even finish a season. Heyman... failed. It wasn't just the promoter side. The creative side never drew in enough fans to sustain the product beyond what Paul was able to fleece / steal from people.

Darn... the type of banning you did wiped the ability to use the advanced search window to search by his user name. Must be a way to "deactivate" his positing ability without turning him into a Guest... and then adding some tag that they're Banned... hmmm... change the avatar to: http://blogs.knoxnews.com/editor/banned-stamp-clipart.png Of something like that.

You were the one who said Vince has a certain way of doing things. I'm actually agreeing on that point. I'm also saying Vince did a good job of protecting Hogan-Andre by not having it follow Savage-Steamboat. Again, there's no evidence that Vince thought like that: "I'm worried about the biggest most anticipated match I've ever promoted following the IC Title match... because Hogan can never follow an action packed match and I never would allow that to happen..." WWF @ Milwaukee, WI - Arena - October 23, 1986 (9,902) WWF IC Champion Randy Savage fought Jake Roberts to a double disqualification WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan & the Crusher defeated Big John Studd & King Kong Bundy WWF @ Detroit, MI - October 25, 1986 (21,000; sell out) Ricky Steamboat defeated WWF IC Champion Randy Savage via count-out Paul Orndorff defeated WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan via disqualification WWF @ Providence, RI - Civic Center - October 31, 1986 Scott McGhee, WWF Tag Team Champions Davey Boy Smith & the Dynamite Kid defeated Greg Valentine, Brutus Beefcake, & Johnny V WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan defeated Paul Orndorff in a steel cage match WWF @ Long Island, NY - Nassau Coliseum - November 3, 1986 (12,000) WWF Tag Team Champions Davey Boy Smith & the Dynamite Kid defeated Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake in a Texas Tornado Match WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan defeated Paul Orndorff via count-out That's less than a 10 stretch, with Hogan following two of the WWF's "hottest" workrate pairings of the period, along with the Savage-Jake match coming off their heated and terrific SNME match up. We can go back from there and find countless times where Hogan followed a Savage Match or a Bulldogs Match or other WWF Workrate Matches (such as the Harts vs Rougeau or Killer Bees. They really didn't have issues running Hogan after workrate matches. #1 - the WWF didn't think that way as workrate meant shit to Vince. #2 - Hogan was more over than God with WWF fans, so Vince never worried about him following anything. That's all fair. But you'll notice that in not a single one of those cards did he have to follow anything as good or even with the potential to be as good as something like Savage-Steamboat. Again, they were protected and no one got the feeling like they were outworked by the previous match or that the previous match felt more important. This would mean something if WWF PPV's were regularly having matches pushed as hard as Steamer-Savage that were as good as Steamer-Savage and that Vince knew going in would be as good as Steamer-Savage (even if Vince knew that about Steamer-Savage). There were exactly Zero PPV matches like that in the Hogan Era. Even something that after-the-fact was as great as Savage-Warrior wasn't thought to be a lock to be as good as Steamer-Savage going in. That frankly was part of the buzz about that match: it was much better than anyone expected. So saying that he never had to follow something like Steamer-Savage is meaningless. :/ I think that was part of my point: at III, Vince was developing his way of laying out PPV cards. It wasn't at all the case a I or II. Well... it's kind of funny that you mention Survivors since on the first one, Hogan followed the match that was most likely to be "good" and "heated" and "workrate" of the non-Hogan matches: the tag team survivor match. And it was the one that got most of the praise off the card. Which is a House Show rather than a PPV, and I can point to dozens of house shows where Hogan followed a workrate match. We actually don't know when at tapings the matches were filmed for SNME, nor the order they were filmed in relative to how they were edited for TV. It's probably best to just set them aside. You're really going to sit there with a straight face and compare Richter-Moolah to Savage-Steamboat? In terms of push? It was *more* pushed than Steamer-Savage. This actually wasn't a distraction. It would be like Vince vs Hogan being a "distraction" on the Mania card that it appeared on: it was pushed hard as a major part of the card. You think a crowd would ever be burned out after a battle royal? While I like them, a lot of it is just watching guys stand around a lot. Again, a novelty tie-in with the football players before they go to the title match. Given the local tie in, where that match in Chicago was pushed even harder than the tag title, who knows. On top if it being well booked to come down to Andre and the Harts. I'm saying Vince doesn't give a shit about protecting his main events. I mean... did he protect Trip-Jericho from Rock-Hogan? Vince doesn't think in those teams. Instead, he thinks in terms of avoiding fans getting bored out of their minds by the undercard they didn't really pay to see, and instead likes to give them highpoints earlier in the card to pick them up. "Calming down before the next high" isn't what he worries about. It's them sitting there for two hours watching stuff they're less interested in before the Good Stuff comes out last. I don't even think that WWF Fans at the time thought that. WWF Fans really didn't think in terms of workrate. Anymore than JCP fans thought that Flair-Garvin was better than the match where Dusty won the title from Ric. John

I've run into it more used as a badge of honor by people who *are not* bipolar to explain away their own bullshit. Hence my quoted reference. I have empathy for those that are. I'm annoyed by those who aren't and instead self diagnose it on themselves. John

As was bi-polar before it. One of the points I was getting at. John

Yes, but the crowd also had a long rest period from "holy shit that was the coolest thing I've ever seen" to gear back up for the mega-match. The same way they had time after Piper's "retirement" match to gear up for Savage-Steamboat. If they had to go straight from Savage and Steamboat tearing the house down and going a million miles an hour (by WWF standards at the time), they may not have been as kind to the lumbering Giant. So never in the history of the WWF have there been two matches back-to-back that have gotten heat, especially when the second one was the most anticipated match of the year (decade / history) for the WWF? Seriously... you're arguing that (i) Because There Was A Cooling Down Period that there (ii) Must Always Be A Cooling Down Period. As far as the fans watching the lumbering Giant, despite him lumbering in that match, they paid to see him at Summer Slam, County Park, Survivors, and set a TV record to watch him lumber with Hogan on NBC with the Two Hebners. Just because you and I thought he was lumbering doesn't mean that WWF Fans at the time weren't losing their shit for him. Yes it's the way Vince likes to do things. By that same token, it's what the WWF audience had been trained to expect. A deviation from that risks producing a different result. What training? Mania I WWF Tag Title: Mike Rotundo & Barry Windham vs Nikolai Volkoff & Iron Sheik - title change Andre the Giant vs Big John Studd (bodyslam match) WWF Womens Title: Leilani Kai vs Wendi Richter (w/ Cyndi Lauper) - title change Hulk Hogan & Mr. T vs Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff Those were the last four matches. They were the most pushed matches. The womens match was *massively* pushed because of Lauper. Was there a lack of heat for Hogan and the main event having to follow those three matches? Were there heat issues with any of them given that stack? Mania II has a Double Main Event in Chicago, with the heavily pushed Battle Royal (with all the football players + Andre) followed by the Tag Title match. Clearly the Tag Title match didn't have any problems getting heat at the second half of the main event in that building. So basically what happened at Mania III was that Vince "invented" a new way to lay out a PPV card. I don't think he had any fear of Hogan-Andre being able to follow *any* match in the WWF, that day or any other day. I think what he wanted by spreading out the three big matches was to keep the fans from being bored by the matches they cared far less about in the 3+ hours looooooooong card. The problem weren't the Big Matches, or putting them together. It's that it was a massive card filled with a lot of matches that the 90K fans didn't care remotely about relative to Hogan-Andre. No we don't all agree, that's why we're having the discussion Even Meltzer speculated at the time that Hogan-Andre might go on in the middle to cover for what he figured was going to be a stinker of a match and to keep them from following something hot. Dave didn't like the WWF at the time, and didn't care for Hogan. Hell... he thought the match was a stinker anyway. But watch it: the fans ate the shit up. It's the match they came for, and they dug it. At the time... Dave wasn't very good at getting that. So him being wrong going in doesn't mean anything. John

I think we all like to project and diagnose onto others what we ourselves have, or that those we love have. At times we're right: I've had two friends where their kids had long, lingering "stomach illnesses" that caused them to basically miss a school year... then feel fine during the summer... and then have it come back no later than a month into the next school year. I was roughly a year ahead of the parents, and their doctors, that it was in the kids heads causing the physical symptoms. And had a reasonable idea of the things he kid was likely dealing with in their heads that were causing it. And ahead of the curve when one of the parent dropped a comment from one of the kids that made me as gently as possible raise the red flag of, "You really need to get him psychological help because that's the type of comment kids who kill themselves make." At times... we're wrong. I can see a friend who is "down" and not quite their normal self for a stretch, and worry if they're depressed... projecting something I've dealt with (not always well) since high school. And it not really be that, but instead a fairly normal reaction to other things. I'm glad that we're seeing more attention to AS. But I also think that a big chunk of it being tossed around in the mainstream is that people like it as a new magic answer to "Ah... that's that the problem with the kid / guy is." It became / has become the next big thing after Bi-Polar. While I'm glad that we've seen a lot of advances in dealing with bi-polar / depression / manic depression, I cringe when I see people Bi-Polar tossed around lightly to explain light ass stuff away. Perhaps because it's hit close to home, and I've had family, friends and family members of friends who've taken their life while battling it. Person: "Well... I'm just a little bi-polar." jdw : "Well... fuck you." :/ Tossing AS out at Dave on a pro wrestling board where half the people will think, "Well that explains why Dave is goofy" and the other half will think, "Why the fuck are we going into this" just cheapens AS. :/ I far prefer simple stuff: Dave Scherer is an asshole. That doesn't cheap Assholes at all, speaking as one myself. So can we put this to bend. Diagnosing the mental health of a pro wrestling writer is kind of... beyond what even most of us do here, even the abrasive ones like me.

I don't think that's Toronto, and instead is one of the two times Mosca Jr. lifted the title from Ivan in Carolina: http://www.midatlanticgateway.com/Almanac/...tle_history.htm

I'm talking in the other direction: if it went Steamer-Savage then Hogan-Andre, back-to-back to close the card, do you really think Hogan-Andre... the most anticipated match of that entire generation... the one that sold 90K tickets couldn't have followed Steamer-Savage? I actually do think having Hogan-Andre immediately follow Savage-Steamboat would have been a problem. For many WWF-centric fans, Savage-Steamboat was the greatest thing they'd ever seen and to have Hogan work an immobile Andre directly after did pose a legitimate risk of cooling the crowd. As it stood, I remember more fans talking about Savage-Steamboat when it was over. All anyone remembered about the main event was that Hogan bodyslammed the Giant. Totally disagree with this. The crowd buzzed, and they opened "hot" with Andre's nearfall. Some of us may think it's a boring, laying around match. I certain did at the time. But WWF fans ate the shit up. It was the biggest match in history to WWF fans at the time. Again, this is simply the way Vince and co like to do things. I think we all agree that Savage-Steamer could have followed Piper-Adonis, and in turn Hogan-Andre could have followed anything that day, including Jesus coming back in the semifinal. John

I didn't find it a hoot. But then again... how many people laughed at Mae Young's kid? We might not find it funny, but it clearly was a comedy spot.

I've been in crowds where the fans have gotten burned out despite the card being good, and being drained before a good main event happens. I've been in crowds where the fans *haven't* gotten burned out despite the card being good, and not being drained for a good main event or good late-in-the-card match. I've been at cards where the crowd had gotten burned out in under 2 hours. I've been at cards where the crowd has gone batshit over 5 hours in. You're trying to apply a binary Yes:No / Black:White one rule fits all. I think that's utter bullshit as crowds and cards and wrestlers are different. Which is why I keep trying to point to Warrior-Hogan: It doesn't matter what on that card came before it, the fans were going to still lose their shit. It's frankly a really weak Mania card. But still... you could put Savage-Steamer infront of it, and Hogan-Warrior still would have had heat. Just as if at Mania III Steamer-Savage went on right before Hogan-Andre: that main event would have had the fans losing their shit right from the entrances. This is your problem in these discussions: you see binary, get your mind set in the 0 position, can't grasp that not only is 1 possible... but that they are a myriad of 0.1 and 0.2 and .03 and ,0.4 and 0.5 and 0.6 and 0.7 and 0.8 and 0.9 in between. Hogan-Warrior doesn't fit your 0, so it gets ingored or is treated as "Vince must have been worried about something to put two shitty matches on before it." Hogan-Andre on a card with Steamer-Savage doesn't fit your 0, is quite troubling to your 0 concept... so it's best just to back away from it and pretend it never happened. There are cards that a 0 as you think, be it due to the fans or the workers. This year's Mania was a 0, and we all could see some layout work was needed, especially around the Brock-Trip match. But that's not a rule that we can then apply to every card in the world. Mania VI was a 1. Hogan-Warrior was going to get heat where ever it was placed, and in fact it was a generally weak card where nothing else on was a big heat magnet anyway. Mania III was a 0.5. There was another great, heated match on the card that the fans ate up: Savage-Steamer. But... truly... 90K fans were there to specifically see Hogan-Andre, at the very peak of Hulkamania. The fans buzzed to see it. They laid out a match that played to the fans nearly perfect. It doesn't matter of another great heat match was on in front of it: Hogan-Andre would have still torn the house down. So get past your 0:1 viewpoint of pro wrestling, and get past getting stuck on 0.

Jerry: look at that card. Do you honestly think Hogan-Warrior couldn't have followed *any* match on the card? There really isn't anything of not or real interest or great feuds on it. It's about as one-match as Mania's ever got. :/ Why would they have Savage-Steamer follow the match that sold 90K tickets? I'm talking in the other direction: if it went Steamer-Savage then Hogan-Andre, back-to-back to close the card, do you really think Hogan-Andre... the most anticipated match of that entire generation... the one that sold 90K tickets couldn't have followed Steamer-Savage? It's just the way that Vince & Co chose to layout their cards. They liked to have a "main event" before intermission / in the middle of the card. Explaining WWF Thought is rarely satisfactory. Do you think WWF Think only became unsatisfying to explain in the Russo Era... or the Trip-Steph Era of writing? It's long been that way. I saw 20 minute MX matches followed by 20 minute Flair matches, +/- 3 minutes each. The last two matches at Starcade 86 went 19+ each. This wasn't terribly uncommon. If Dusty went on right before Flair, or the Road Warriors did, then you'd get a 10 minute or less match. Odd... I didn't think there were many full JCP house shows out there, similar to the MSG, Boston and Philly cards for the WWF. This is something new to me. Perhaps you can point me to where these exist. My thought would be to watch the long 20+ minute Tito-Orton draw, the long Tito-Rude match in Boston, and then a 20 minute Flair match with say Barry Windham. You tell me who had more Stuff in the first 5-10 minutes. That after all is why Ric gets pimped as the best of all-time: because he had those "great" matches that kept people into them, while others laid around more. John

I love the arm wrenching spot. You can see that in clips back in the 60s. yeah, I've seen it in lucha a bunch. Totally forgot that... it's awesome in Lucha! Yeah... the MPro version was awesome too. Totally. Worked from territory to territory, country to country. John

I may have laughed the first time I watched them as I was blown away things like that were happening in Japan in the 80s. Sheer, joyful laughter.

I love the arm wrenching spot. You can see that in clips back in the 60s. Awesome. That Jacksons are a current team that when you see them in an indy setting, getting to work *their* match (as opposed to being forced by TNA to work a TV format), they have loads of Bullshit that gets the crowd laughing their asses off. Or... Folks should find some Candice LeRae intergender matches. The funny thing is that *she* tends to work as non-comedy and non-emotional as say 1987 Barry Windham, but she (and her opponents) have a load of spots for the Guy opponent to stooge and eat shit on. They're a part of her matches, but she tends to work serious, get put upon by the guys, then they eat it in paybacks. No one will confuse it with Akira Hokuto, but I have a good amount of respect for Candice working hard, taking way more from people in the ring than I would, and developing her own matches.