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Starcade 83 finished with the three biggest matches. Starcade 85 finished with the four biggest matches. Starcade 86 finished with the four biggest matches. Etc. The WWF, and specifically Wrestlemania, are different beasts. They have their way of doing things, and it goes back before Vince took over. But you don't honestly think that Hogan-Andre couldn't have directly followed Savage-Steamboat, right? That it needed two matches between to calm the match down? Seriously... Hogan-Andre that card could have followed five straight Savage-Steamboats and the crowd would have gone batshit. In turn, every Hogan Match at Mania from 1985-92 could have follow *any* match on those specific cards. Vince didn't break things up so that Hogan Fans could get recharged before Hogan came out. It's simply the way Vince and the WWF did things. Again: there wasn't a single match on that card that Hogan-Warrior couldn't have followed. Hell, it's not like that was a good undercard with even a Savage-Steamer on it. Vince & Co. laid out their card because that's how they liked to break up Mania. Not because they feared what you see as a Punk-Taker + Trip-Brock + Cena-Rock effect coming crashing down on Hogan and Warrior. There literally wasn't a single match the WWF put on in 1990 that Hogan-Warrior couldn't have followed and gotten the exact same reaction. Hell, it's possible they would have gotten a better reaction if fans didn't have to sit through a largely shitty undercard. John

A Flair "peak & trough" isn't remotely close to a Divas Match or a 4 minute Rude-Snuka match. At that point in a Mania card, no one gives two shits about Rude and Snuka while Hogan-Warrior is up next. With Flair... he's the Main Event, the match that people have been waiting to see. Pop in the Clash 1. Watch the buzz for Arn & Tully vs Barry & Lex. Then watch the buzz in the pre match for Sting-Flair, and through their early stuff. JCP Fans didn't need a Divas Match to come out to give them time to take a piss or clam down before Ric and Sting came out to work. Did they work up and down? Sure. But that also because Clash 1 and Clash VI were counter programmed against Mania, with the intent to put on a Loooooooooooong Flair Match opposite of Mania on Free TV. These weren't ordinary Flair matches. We never saw Flair PPV matches in that era go 45 and 55 minutes, and him going even 35+ was rate on PPV (only one comes to mind). Set aside those two outliers, and the average Clash Main Event in the Flair Era (3/88 - 6/91) was just over 12 minutes. Flair's other main events in that era averaged over 15 minutes. Or flip it another way: How different were the peaks & troughs of Flair-Funk at Clash IX, relative to the era, to that peaks & troughs of Trip-Brock and Cena-Rock? Relative to the era, not at all. My recollection also is that they followed a pretty good Lex-Pillman match, and didn't need a Big Josh or Ding Dongs match in between to break things up. John, thinking it's probably best not to bring up the last four matches of the 1989 Bash...

Actually, I answered that, but you ignored it: I actually think you're mistaken on that, both for Rock-Cena and Trip-Brock. They weren't 24 straight minutes each of high spots. Neither was Taker-Punk. They have plenty of "troughs" where they're laying around selling the fuck out of spot... insert the popular phrase on this board about being self indulgent. John I really don't think that the Rock-Cena and Trip-Brock are the non-stop-spot-o-thons you're making them out to be. Nor that the style contrast between those two (from one to the next) is that different from say the style contract of Hansen-Kawada leading into Misawa-Taue. Ric really wasn't a big matwork guy. His first 7-10 minutes of a match tended to have as much "stuff" as a lot of people's 12 minute full matches. Have a hold, pick it up, do some high spots, maybe take it down maybe not, etc. The WWF had different reasons for doing their cards. They often liked to put the main event (Hogan or Backlund match) on before intermission (or before late in the match) so that they could announce the rematch later on the show to get people hyped to go on last. Generally speaking, Flair always went on Last or Second To Last on JCP Expansion Era shows. He would go on Second To Last when there was a Cage Match main event, usually Dusty or something like that. It simply was a matter of taking time to put the cage up and take it down, so if Ric's match wasn't a cage match as well, they'd have him go on second to last. It's just the way that JCP, and a lot of promotions, structured their cards. It was more tradition than looking around and saying, "We don't want Wrestler X to have to follow this hot match!" In turn, the WWF booked their cards with the Main Event not actually going on Last all the way back into the 70s. It's just how they did it. Doesn't mean that they were self aware in laying out their cards. Someone in the 60s or 50s came up with it, and stuck with it. Christ... it's pro wrestling. These guys aren't rocket scientists. They tend to find something that works for them (or think works for them), and stick with it. Searching for hidden meanings in it is a waste. And there were others that booked it like the WWF. Go look up old newspaper results and see matches going on after the Main Event. JCP might be more traditional, but the WWF wasn't completely unique. No one is claiming you made it up. We're saying that you're making way too much of it. Well, I actually tossed out several examples. From several promotions. I could toss out some Lucha shows that I went to where the crowd was batshit hot for 4+ straight matches, including main events that most probably would think we shitty. Long cards, that started more than an hour late and were closing in on midnight when they ended... but the crowd still gave more heat than Brock-Trip and Cena-Rock. John

It's not about head exploding. I just don't think Japanese crowds laughed anymore in the 80s than US crowds. Folks have given you examples in the US. You ignore them. That's SOP for you: * you make a claim * you don't back it up * others point to things contrary to your claims * you ignore them * others give examples of those conterpoints * you ignore them some more * others give even more examples Wash, rinse, repeat. Jerry: a number of other people have pointed to you examples of comedy in US matches getting laughs. That you can't remember doesn't void their reality. So was there more laughing in Choshu & Yatsu vs Jumbo & Tenryu than that Warrior-Heenan Weasel Suit match? John

I don't think 1984-94 WWF crowds were unique. Like most fans, they were trained to like what the promotion fed them... but fans didn't always go along with the program. I also think that one could find plenty of what was "boring" in the WWF in other promotions. Fans weren't exactly chanting Booooorrrrrringggggg everywhere. John

Okay... so we can pitch the comedy nonsense on the woodpile. On the original thread of "needing cooling off matches / segements", I think that can go as well. We all have seen cards where there were back-to-back matches with hot crowds. The notion that they need to be different didn't work either, as Liger-Sasuke and Pegasus-Sasuke (along with any number of others) were similar. So... it appears to be an issue with either the WWE or the specific workers, or a combo of both. John

Yep... Buddy is a perfect example. Ditto on the Rude-Piper. Adonis taking crotch shots on the rope... pretty much any heel doing so. John

Yeah... the Weasel Suit was pretty famous. I think Jerry is just trolling. I can't imagine anyone thinks 80s US Wrestling was devoid of comedy and fans laughing at heels stooging. John

Wait... I just have to find 1 example in the US in the 80s of US crowd laughing at a comedy spot? So like Rick Rude taking a nut shot on the ropes? Or Cornette and the diaper? Or... You're kidding, right? John

I'm at a total loss that someone would think that US Fans never laughed at Comedy Spots in the long tradition of comedy in US Pro Wrestling. Hell, I've been at lucha cards where Negro Casas got the entire crowd to laugh at him... and even got *his* fans to *not* support him after such a comedy spot. I know... because I was right in the middle of the section of Negro Fans (both gringos and Mexican) who had been cheering him up to that point. And Negro Fans were so hip to what their role was that the knew that when Negro appealed to them after a stoogey buffoon spot that they were suppose to shake their head and wave their index finger at Negro to say: "No... we can't support you when you fall on your face like that." To which Negro perfectly played it, pouting that he'd even lost His Fans. I actually think other than the Baba Matches that Japan is pretty light on comedy relative to US pro wrestling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWusj-ZaF4c I'm sure that people can find clips of Cornette and the MX getting laughed at as well. John

The Dave = Asperger Syndrome is annoying. Having actually interacted socially with him probably more times that everyone else on this board *combined*... the diagnosis is part funny and part eye rolling material. Is Dave quirky? Sure. On the other hand, look around. We post to a pro wrestling message board. We are a bunch of folks with quirks as well. It's a waste of time to try to project onto folks that we don't know. John

They're a bit hard to define. I don't know if I would call them a satellite of JCP. Toronto seemed to be its own territory: it had it's own group of guys who seemed to appear on the MLG cards. It also used JCP talent, and it also used WWF talent. They also would bring in the AWA champ on occasion. Backlund was there all the time up through early 1980. Graham's site is light on full card results as 1980 goes on, before getting fuller again in 1982. It has more of a St. Louis feel: major city, limited local guys, largely drawing from all over the place for big matches.

I think fans laughed when Flair got shoved down by Tommy Young.

I actually think you're mistaken on that, both for Rock-Cena and Trip-Brock. They weren't 24 straight minutes each of high spots. Neither was Taker-Punk. They have plenty of "troughs" where they're laying around selling the fuck out of spot... insert the popular phrase on this board about being self indulgent. John

AJPW February 28, 1993 in Tokyo, Japan Budokan drawing 16,300 ($850,000) PWF Junior Heavyweight Champ Masa Fuchi pinned Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (11:03). Kenta Kobashi pinned Danny Spivey (16:59). Stan Hansen pinned Toshiaki Kawada (24:02). All Japan Triple Crown Champ Mitsuharu Misawa pinned Akira Taue (22:33) Those were the last four matches. Dave went ****1/4, ***1/4, ****3/4 and **** on them. One might want to try to say that Fuchi-Kikuchi was stylistically different from the others, but AJPW Juniors actually worked closer to AJPW Heavies at the time than NJPW Juniors. The other matches were generally stylistically similar. It's just that... Kobashi was great enough in 1993 to follow a match the crowd liked. Misawa was great enough to follow a wickedly great Hansen-Kawada match. A card later in the year had Kobashi-Gordy, Kawada-Williams and Misawa-Hansen all in a row... and all got the crowd going. Or... We can pitch all of these overboard and look at the first Super J Cup where there was no Divas match to break stuff up Saskue-Liger and Sasuke-Pegasus, coming on the heels of a card where there was a ton of stylistic commonality. :/ John

Come now... don't you think this was even more entertaining: "I don't think this fight is about race. Ultimately it's about the best fighter ever beating up a funny self promoter." -Snowden Or: "Here's the answer, do you believe Chael is trying to get black fans to the arena to boo him in Newark?" -Dave "We are talking about the UFC right? RT @davemeltzerWON black fans to the arena to boo him in Newark?" -Snowden

Dave kind of lives in a bubble on those things. It pretty much needs to be Flair vs Rocky King for him get it, i.e. nakedly obvious.

I don't think he retired at any point in 1994. He did the draw with Funk on the first ECW card of the year, and the second was The Night The Line Was Crossed. Other than November to Remember 1993, it looks like he was working all of the ECW Arena cards after coming into the promotion in August 1993. Now it was a pissant promotion not working many shows at the time, so he probably could teach while also working the monthly Arena cards. But he had won the title quickly in 1993, and with the belt passing to Sabu and then to Funk, it set up the early 1994 three-way storyline. There is something a bit tragic in Shane because he probably could have gotten out early and a normal, sane life. But he turned 29 at the end of 1993, he'd been in pro wrestling since 1982 with a lot more lows than ups, so he clearly had the bug and was just waiting for each little breadcrumb to justify continuing down that path. Things like the Dynamic Dudes and the partnership with Steamer opposite Pillman & Austin were just enough to justify it for him. It's hard to imaging him ever letting go. John

As Loss said, there are various ways to book a card: New Japan Pro Wrestling November 1, 1990 in Tokyo, Japan Budokan drawing 14,014 ($630,000) 1. Osamu Matsuda, Takayuki Iizuka, Kuniaki Kobayashi, & Kentaro Hoshino beat Super Strong Machine, Hiro Saito, Tatsutoshi Goto, & Norio Honaga. 2. Osamu Kido & Kengo Kimura beat Bad News Allen & Larry Cameron. 3. Animal Hamaguchi pinned Masanobu Kurisu. 4. Shiro Koshinaka beat Seiji Aoyagi (4th Rnd) via submission in a "wrestler vs. karate" match. 5. Tiger Jeet Singh beat Tatsumi Fujinami via DQ. 6. Jushin Liger pinned Chris Benoit to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title. 7. Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki beat Keiji Mutoh & Masa Chono (16:56) when Hase pinned Mutoh to win the IWGP Tag Title 8. IWGP Champ Riki Choshu pinned Shinya Hashimoto (16:40). The last three matches on the card were the big ones. They all had heat. The tag title had to follow a heated flashy Liger match with him winning the title back. The heavyweight title match had to follow a heated, terrific tag title match where those belts changed as well. The final match was different, built, and in the end was terrific and heated. They didn't need a Divas match to break things up. All Japan Pro Wrestling April 18, 1991 in Tokyo, Japan Budokan drawing 15,960 1. Ismu Teranishi pinned Satoru Asako (5:44). 2. Rex King & Steve Doll beat Yoshinori Ogawa & Mitsuo Momota (8:39). 3. Dynamite Kid & Johnny Smith beat Richard Slinger & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (11:18). 4. Andre the Giant, Rusher Kimura, & Mighty Inoue beat Masa Fuchi, Haruka Eigan, & Motoshi Okuma (9:16). 5. Doug Furnas & Dory Funk, Jr. beat Cactus Jack & Texas Terminator Hoss (9:20) when Funk forced Cactus to submit. 6. Kenta Kobashi pinned Dan Kroffat (10:39). 7. Akira Taue beat Toshiaki Kawada (15:53) via countout. 8. Stan Hansen & Danny Spivey beat Terry Gordy & Steve Williams (20:40) to win the All Japan World Tag Title when Hansen pinned Williams. 9. All Japan Triple Crown Champ Jumbo Tsuruta pinned Mitsu Misawa (23:17) My recollection is that what aired of the Kobashi-Krofatt was heated and entertaining for the crowd. Taue-Kawada was a match the fans popped for, and the two worked their asses off. The tag title match was heated and entertained the fans. The main event had the crowd going, even through the match had now main evented 3 out of 4 straight Budokans, with a tag meeting between the two being the double main even of the other Budokan. I don't buy into the notion that Japanese Fans are/were that radically different from US Fans where they need to have peaks and valleys in cards. They can watch 3 straight good matches that get them going. I suspect those of us who have gone to live cards can say the same thing: we've been to shows where there have been a stretch of good matches in a row. Where "burnout" tends to come into play on some of those cards is when it's been a long card, or a Lot Of Stuff happened from early to late on the card and the crowd has gotten drained. In those case, there has been a layout issue, or people just didn't think things through. But I've also been to a 5+ hour card with 13 matches for which most of them drew a lot of interest and/or crowd response, of which the 12th drove the crowd the most out of their minds despite going 30 minutes and having no finish. Even after that... the crowd wanted to get into the last match, but it was the workers (rather than the layout of the card) who did a poor job of laying out their own match. Anyway... There is no Magic Number of 42 that explains the proper way to layout a match. It's usually far easier after a card to point out how things could have been handled differently than going into a card coming up with the perfect sequence and booking.

How do you define it?

Ric Flair hardly invented the role, so the argument must be that he somehow played it wrong or that the role was flawed in the first place. I think it's strange that Horsemen Flair, Tully and Arn who could bitch and stooge as well as they delivered a beat down aren't praised for their range. Who said he invented the role or that he played it wrong? The thread makes it rather explicit that we think he played it great. Christ... I even dropped the F40 in the thread.

Good lord... Flair is hardly held to a critical standard. He's the GOAT of GOATS, and has been for close to 30 years. For almost all of that, Flair's GOATdom has been held to *no* critical standards, and simply been taken on faith because it was on the tablets handed by God to Mosezler. Even people like me who've pointed out him doing the same stupid shit that mere Mortal Wrestlers get knocked left and right for, we have to bend over backwards to make sure that people know we still think Ric is a great, great, great worker. Then shake out heads when people think we hate Ric. It's next to impossible to apply critical thinking to Flair like we do everyone else because fans of Flair get so defensive about him being treated like any other wrestler. You're pretty much 180 degrees the opposite of Flair Analysis over the past 30 years. This is disingenuous. You know that I'm referring to discussion of Flair in the last decade, and on boards like this, DVDVR, Smarkschoice and tOA. I am actually covering that period as well in the point above: both that period, and the one before which caused the massive Consensus that Flair was the GOAT and above criticism. This is a new one on me. Everyone has signature spots. Are you sure that isn't criticism of *specific* spots. Rock has signature spots. People tend to criticize a *specific* spot: The People's Elbow This is actually a criticism from the 80s and very early 90s in the sheets and from other wrestlers. There's nothing new to it, and it was largely dismissed by the Consensus. Others have given it more critical thought since then, some finding it a positive and some finding it a negative. But it's nothing new. Everybody does. He was 40 in 1989. How much longer did people expect him to continue to be a top worker? Granted: the most myopic of fans of Flair don't want to admit that he was mediocre / poor even when he was 60 years old and pretty much a joke in there. If this is all the criticism that's popped up in the past 10+ years, then we collectively are a pretty shitty group of wrestling analysts. Oh... I suspect more critical words have been written about Shawn Michaels as a worker than Ric Flair. And hardly anyone says anything positive about Brody and Tiger Mask anymore, which is in contrast to the folks who make points about Flair while saying he was a great, great, great worker. As far as why someone hasn't spent time on breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of say Lawler and Fujiwara, don't look at me. I don't give enough shit about either of them focus on it and really ponder their work. [i'm more interested in trying to figure out if people are overrating Phil Jones.] Perhaps you or someone else can. Or maybe people just want to say they're great, Always Great and GREAT~!, and not put much critical thought into them. Having signature spots? Everyone. Having a general formula and preferred method of working? Pretty much everyone. Declining with age? Everyone. And actually are made. Beats me. I haven't seen any discussions on Austin in ages. I'm sure they are out there, but I confess that I'm not totally interested since I'm not watching Austin at the moment. I could have sworn that 90s juniors style was thrown out on the woodpile a few years back. It's nice to see it's made a comeback in the yearbooks, but I'm not even sold that people are breaking down what Liger did *well* to much degree. Beats me. Yearbooks have been released that cover Leon's prime, along with the AWA and NJPW 80s sets that cover his start. I'd be interested to see if anyone has bothered to put much thought into his career after viewing them. What we typically get are just short, quick thoughts about matches. Which is fine, but it's not really what you're looking for. On the other hand... it's also what *you* are writing about Vader, rather than something lengthy and in detail breaking down his work. I'm at a loss for the complaints that people give enough shit about Flair to write about him and think about his work and think about his position as GOAT when you're not running off to do the same thing for Austin or Liger or Vader. I did my job on Backlund. Don't make be do it for Vader.

Seriously ? Flair going to the tope rope only to get thrown out every damn time (as a heel at least), Flair choping no-selling Sting or Luger with him looking like a complete idiot and begging off like a clown, Flair bumping for the referee. Seriously ? Come on... I kind of dropped my jaw at that one. John

Effort does not translate to quality. I could be "working my ass off" as you put it in a blog that is read by thousands of sweaty fans who know no better and don't read anything from the real world where there are strict standards to compare to. It doesn't entitle me to anything, and if I were to cite my work in hopes of employment with a respected brand - all they will give a shit about is the quality of the writing - not whether Bret Hart placed a phone call to me after Montreal or not. I'll put facts ahead of good writing any day of the week. Even in PhD history circles, you'd be amazed at the amount of trash that gets produced when an easy glance at Wikipedia would correct half of their narratives. And that.