jdw

That.

Page 20 if the mirror reference isn't obvious enough.

Because the guy on the outside did the bitching. I haven't watched a ton of Ted's heel work outside of the WWF. It didn't really look like he played bitch too much in the WWF. He really didn't even do a ton of stooging in the WWF... not saying he did zero, but that wasn't really his character. Rude would stooge and bump his ass off. I'll have to keep an eye out for bitching next time I watch him. Some AWA expert would have to chime in. Someone might want to ask KHawk if he thought Bock was the same type of heel that Flair was. In this 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.

You are correct, and two #1's in this country. I should have said Nena, but thought that would go over everyone's head. John

Hardly unique to Flair. I've even pointed to Savage bitching out by taking cover behind Liz. Of course it only seems like that if you ignore the examples given in this and the prior threads. Hard to see examples of Jumbo doing it, but I'm opening minded to someone citing some for me to look up. Again, would be interested in examples of them doing it. Of course Cornette bitched out. This is where you get hung up: It is neither a compliment nor a rip. It is simply a descriptor. Now think back to the Thesz Fans who got all riled up when people pointed out that he played NWA Heel Champion in most of the old footage the exists of him in the era, including stooging, begging, bumping his ass off, taking shortcuts, fouling behind the ref's back and rough housing. Those were simply descriptors of what Lou did. Well... that pissed them off because they had this mental image of Lou "wrestling straight", being a wrestler's wrestler, and not doing any of that entertainment showy stuff. Well... fuck it. The descriptions were accurate. Watch Lou vs Vern, and that's what Lou was: an NWA Heel Champ, and a pretty damn good one when opposite a great babyface like Verne. I don't really care. Initially people didn't like me saying that Hogan was a pretty damn effective worker in the 80s. It got in the way of their notion that Hogan was a shitty worker, the Anti-Flair with the Mark of the Beast on his forehead, and we can't possibly say anything might be taken as a positive. But... It was a statement of fact. It's impossible to watch Hogan in the mid-80s and not call him effective. Whether one thinks his work is shitty or great is besides the point. The one statement of fact that anyone being objective would agree on is that he was effective in what his job was. So did Misawa, and so did Kobashi. You're looking far too tunnel vision on it: all forms of selling and bumping doesn't mean bitching, anymore than all forms of working on top mean Hulking Up or Super Shawn Comebacks~! How many times must I say that Ric was a great, great, great worker? Black Sabbath is a different type of band than Yes. I'm sure there are people out there who think that both were great at their peak. But they were clearly different. Not all "heels" are alike. Hell, wrestling would suck if they all were. Vader didn't play stooging bitch heel. I think you know that watching Flair-Sting and Vader-Sting you were seeing two very different styles of heels opposite of Sting. Unless you're just intentionally burying your head in the sand thinking that All Heels Are Alike. Loss: I don't think you can't see that heels are different. :/ John

Mr. Schemer is full of shit, as always.

And that's one of the points: he was great at it, and the fans ate it up. It's just a matter of admitting what it was. Air Supply wasn't a heavy metal band. On the other hand, 8 Top 5 hits in 4 years off three albums + a greatest hits album... they *were* a successful group and not a Men At Work style one hit wonder. Admit what Ric is, how he works, and you'll reach the same result in the end: he still was great. John

I felt like Bluto making the Germans comment with that one: Otter: "Germans?" Boon: "Forget it... he's rolling." John

My thought would be to watch Starcade 85. John

No one has ever said that Flair should give very few of his opponents any offense. It certainly wasn't part of the prior Flair thread. I think you know that, and I'm kind of surprised that you're claiming that was an argument people made. :/ John Frankensteiner just pointed out that Flair had three offensive moves in the Garvin match, and you agreed with him. Seriously... do I have to recap what that was about? Okay, if I must: Loss: "He and Ron Garvin beat the hell out of each other in their matches" That was in the process of explaining that Ric only really got the shit kicked out of him by Big Monster Babyfaces. jdw: "Sure... but Ronnie kicked the shit out of him more. 67/33?" I pointed out that Ronnie-Flair wasn't remotely Even Stevens, unless you think 67/33 is a Close Fight. Frakensteiner quoted both of us with actually Stats and Examples and Stuff: Sure... but Ronnie kicked the shit out of him more. 67/33? I think Flair took less than that. I recently re-watched the Flair/Garvin match from the Superstars on Superstation special and (IIRC) Flair got all of 3 (!) moves during a 16 minute match and this includes the weak ass running knee to Garvin's back which ended the entire thing. Sure, Flair threw some chops here and there but all of those were done just to set up getting his ass kicked over and over by Garvin. To which I did two things: (i) "Awesome!" for bringing the details (ii) indicated that was consistent for Ronnie: he liked to kick the shit out of heel like Flair and Tully Now how you go from (i) me saying that Ronnie-Flair was 67/33 and Frankensteiner to saying the it was even more extreme than that to (ii) "I always thought the argument was that Ric Flair, as World champion, should give very few of his opponents any offense" is gobsmacking, Loss. No one remotely is saying The Best Of All Possible Flair's should give very few of his opponents any offense. What we are saying is that the Real Flair gave them a shitload, bitched out, and it was really effective. This is similar to the old Hulk Hogan argument: Old Hardcore Fans: "Hogan sucks! He can't work! He doesn't do shit in there! Same crap all the time!" Revisionist Hardcore Fans: "You know... Hogan's pretty effective in there. The matches are laid out well. They have their movements to build heat. He, or guys like Patterson, get what the fans want to see. That shit is really working well. Might not be my favorite type of wrestling, but it's smart and effective." I love Flair at the time. When I watch him now, I'm about as bored out of my skull as Daniel and Dylan are when watching Misawa-Kawada at their peaks. I could write a lot more on why, but it's a sidebar. But I still see him as a really effective worker: he gets fans into his matches. At his peak, he drew well so it was quite a few fans there that were into what he and his opponent were doing. An all-time great worker. I tend his work in specific terms isn't what people think it is when waxing poetically (i.e. people who try to draw big picture deep thought of his work when he's really as simplistic of a worker as say Hogan was in the 80s). But I don't disagree with the notion that he was a great worker. His method of being a great worker was to stooge and bitch to faces. Folks don't like those words, but I could use "debase himself" just as easily and it's even more accurate. Ric sold for everyone, and as a heel gave most of the key stuff to his opponents. He did this well to draw heat and make the faces look good. Ric sold for Ronnie just like he sold to all heels. Since they wrestled "stiff" and the Chop/Slap was a key element of the storyline, people have this image that they beat the hell out of each other. Really... Ronnie beat the hell out of Flair. Barry did that for all heels. Ricky did that for all heels. This wasn't really anything that Ric brought to the table: it was the faces dictating that based on how they liked to work. On the other hand... they also beat up Flair. They weren't Even Steven matches, or close. You're stuck in Bitching = Criticism, no matter how many times folks toss out Flair Was Great. This is like when I original explained that Flair pretty much worked Spotfu with theme of I've Got Stuff To Do while blowing off shit that just happened. I tried to explain that Flair's Stuff was effective in moving the matches along, giving the fans lots of stuff to pop for, giving it a forward moment even if it didn't look back to what happened earlier. You know... the same shit that New Japan Juniors get shit on because it became fashionable to shit on New Japan Juniors. People really hated that, because Stuff might just be a negative in two directions: * jdw might be having Stuff almost be the Flair equiv of Moves~! and we all know that Moves~! are evil in the Re-Re-Revisionist Minimalistic Analysis Era * jdw might be dismissing that Stuff as being Meaningless when we all know that everything Flair did had meaning Well... fuck it... Flair's Stuff *is* his equiv of Moves~! Just like Lawler's Stuff is his equiv of Moves~! because Moves~! are just Stuff as well. I can't help it if people get Wrestling Dysfunction / Impotence when Stuff makes them think of Moves~! and they feel all uneasy about their wrestling identity like those most virulent of homophobes who really secretly think a little too much about it. Movesphobic: "I don't understand Moves~! Er... not that there's anything wrong with Moves~! it's just that I don't know any Moves~! that I like, and kind of which they'd keep to themselves on indy shows so I didn't have to watch them on tv." jdw: "Well... that's Stuff that you like is just like Moves~! Is there any reason that Moves~! can have their own role in wrestling matches, even a big role, if the Moves~! love each other?" Movesphobic: "Don't mess with the sanctity of my Stuff with your Movies~!" And I could run that into the ground so more as it's too fun... But anyway, I think that while people may not have loved the initial point of Flair Has Stuff To Do, since that got talked about, bubbled in their brains and they've watched Flair matches since... they pretty much have a tough time ignoring the fact that it *is* how Flair works. He really doesn't just have Stuff To Do out there, not to different from spot machines. He was pretty great at it, and people dug it. At some point folks will accept that Flair was a Stooge & Bitch Heel. Really no different than say the Young Guns if you see them work one of their good indy matches. John

Have college wrestlers really been a HUGE part of wrestling's talent base? Researching the issue, I didn't find that to be true. In fact, I think it's notable how few collegiate stars made significant runs in the business. College wrestling hasn't been a huge part of wrestling's talent base for ages. It's not like Vince has worked on recruiting those guys much either. Brock and Angle are exceptions to the rule. I suspect if we go around the indy circuit we'd find the same thing. John

You mean the match where Flair destroys Luger's leg with a chair while JJ Dillon has the ref distracted and gets the pin with his feet on the ropes? Now now...

No one has ever said that Flair should give very few of his opponents any offense. It certainly wasn't part of the prior Flair thread. I think you know that, and I'm kind of surprised that you're claiming that was an argument people made. :/ John

Again... go back to the earlier thread. Folks had a tough time coming back after mountain upon mountain of bitchy Flair was piled up. Christ, Loss... we tossed out examples of him bitching out to REFS! What I don't get is why people still get defensive over this after we also say: "While he was bitching out to the Ref, it was an effective spot to fill up time in the match because people loved it." It's a bit like people getting defensive over over factual statements about this legendary car of the 80s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_F40 It's a fact that the car had no sound system, no door handles, no glove box, no leather trim, no carpets, and no door panels were installed. The interior of the car was... well... goofy, though there was a reason for the goofiness. It was also a great, great, great car for the era and for what it was trying to do. Obsessive F40 Fan might get so locked into "This is God's Gift to Super Cars and can do now wrong" that any factual statements that he reads as "ripping" completely overwhelm what the other person is saying: "This is one mutherfucking great super car. It has its goofiness, but it's fucking great!" "Goofiness? What's this goofiness shit you're talking about?!?!" -F40 Fan But then when spots like this are described: You are describing a wrestler allowing others to get offense on him. If that is what constitutes "playing the bitch", then every wrestler who has ever had a competitive match is guilty of it. Ric lets others get offense on his by: * getting hiptossed all over the place * getting back body dropped all over the place * getting shoulder blocked all over the place * getting tossed into the corner for the Corner Bump * getting Tossed Off The Top Rope * Gorilla Slammed * Clothesline-fu * eating whatever suplex they want to give him * getting put in whatever hold they want to put him in * letting the Ref get offense on him * eating the Ten Count Punch in the corner * letting the Face win 80%+ of the Chop vs [Face Answer] spots * etc, etc, etc, etc With the figure four, we're faced with this dilemma. We are told: * Ric is the Master of the Figure Four * it's his "finisher" * he does it better than anyone else What we see is: * Ric's Figure Four only really, really, really hurts the face of he cheats by grabbing the ropes * Everyone can reverse Ric's figure four * even a decade plus after Ric has "pefected" it, he hasn't figure out how to keep it from getting reversed * reversing Ric's figure four hurts Ric more than Ric's figure four hurts the face * we'd best not think to hard about the Risk-Reward of that too much... Aw, fuck it... let's for a moment: 1. Face Reversal > Ric's Figure Four 2. 100% chance of Figure Four Reversal Ric is taking the first shot in Russian Roulette with a six shooter... with six live cartridges in the chambers. By attempting the Figure Four, he is going to bitch out and take more damage. This is one of the side tangents people have had in prior Flair discussions: A. This spot doesn't make a bit of sense from a logic standpoint: Ric is going to fail B. Ric must know this from vast past experience: it happens to him All The Fucking Time C. However... the spot makes great sense if the objective is to pop the crowd by Ric bitching out It doesn't make a bit of sense from a storyline standpoint, as does a hell of a lot of stuff in Ric's matches... beyond the true point of Ric's heel working stylings: - Ric Has Shit To Do - That Shit Keeps The Match Moving Along - That Shit Pops The Crowd - That Shit Makes The Face Look Great - That Shit Makes Flair Look Weak Those are Ric's Five Shits Of Doom to work a match. Nothing else really matter. It was really effective. Okay... where were we on the figure four... * Ric's Figure Four only really, really, really hurts the face of he cheats by grabbing the ropes * Everyone can reverse Ric's figure four * even a decade plus after Ric has "pefected" it, he hasn't figure out how to keep it from getting reversed * reversing Ric's figure four hurts Ric more than Ric's figure four hurts the face * we'd best not think to hard about the Risk-Reward of that too much... Okay... next... * Nearly Everyone puts the figure four on Ric * Everyone's figure four does more damage to Ric than Ric's does to them Ric is the Master... he's perfected it over a decade... it's his finisher (even if you could go a year without seeing him beat anyone of note with it)... the Face may not ever use the hold in his other matches... but out of nowhere he can slap it on Ric, apply it better, do more damage to Ric, and make Ric squeal from it. Bitch spot. A glorious great one since the crowd is going batshit for it. Never annoyed me much. I don't care for the Ref Shove & Bump Spot, but couldn't argue with Frank years ago when he pointed out that it was really effective bitching because the crowd ate it up. Anyway... Get past the obsessing over the word Bitch. It's what Ric played in the ring. Exceptionally well. He was a great worker. One of the best, if not the best, of his era. Like the Ferrari F40: one of the greatest super cars of all time, despite its quirks. John

Sure... but Ronnie kicked the shit out of him more. 67/33? I think Flair took less than that. I recently re-watched the Flair/Garvin match from the Superstars on Superstation special and (IIRC) Flair got all of 3 (!) moves during a 16 minute match and this includes the weak ass running knee to Garvin's back which ended the entire thing. Sure, Flair threw some chops here and there but all of those were done just to set up getting his ass kicked over and over by Garvin. Awesome. Part of that is Ronnie: he really liked to Top. His great match with Tully saw him really kick the living shit out of Tully. There were times where it looked like Tully transitioned, thought "Alright... might turn to be on top for a while and get some FIP on Ronnie..." and then a minute or so later Ronnie had enough of that, and went back to kicking the shit out of Tully. Ronnie could sell, and had his own way of doing it. But he also had a lot of fun turning a heel into a pretzel. John

My girlfriend has a combination of putting together Hotel California, Freebird, Sweet Emotion and Stairway to Heaven... the four AOR songs she hates the most. John

For what it's worth, I have no idea where the HTM stuff came from. I don't recall throwing out that thesis before. I was disagreeing with Jerry above on the "Bitch" aspect. Hell, it's been so long since I've given two shits about HTM to watch his matches and worry about whether he was a bitch. The words/phrases that came to my mind when watching him back in the say were "shitty", "joke", and "for fuck's sake has the IC Title gone to shit since Savage stopped holding it". In contrast, I tend to think Flair was a pretty damn great/effective champ. John

I really think if you watch those closely you'll see that Ric bitches out to both (and the ref if needed). Steamer and Barry sell more for him that Big Guys, but it doesn't mean that the sum of the match is that they kicked the shit out of The Champ, and The Champ hung on to the title via fluke and/or cheating and/or being out of it at the finish. Look at the bolded parts. I believe that's what I said. My point was that he bitched out to them as well. Hell, he bitched out to guys like Italian Stallion. We're going to see it a lot against guys like Steamer and Barry. This is a bad thing worth criticism? Depends on whether one likes a bitchy champ our nor. I'm only saying that the attempt to say he didn't play the bitch to Ronnie is incorrect. He did. Flair's job was to get Morton over as a worthy challenger. Ricky Morton, a great wrestler, but one who was primarily a tag wrestler and weighed under 200 lbs. If Jumbo was tasked with getting over Kikuchi as his top challenger so the match could draw money, what do you think he would do? The fans wouldn't buy Kikuchi as a top draw. Instead, Jumbo got over a former Jr. heavy who frankly was pretty light realtive to Jumbo in 1990 and had accomplished nothing of note as a heavy singles in his entire career up to that point... and we can say that Jumbo got Misawa over quite a bit better than Ric got over Morton. Or Sting. Or Lex. Or... anyone in the 80s and 90s? Kerry was a combo of Flair and the Birds. I give Flair a lot of credit for that. But Misawa... that was 100% Jumbo getting him over. So yeah, Jumbo was able to get over a slight guy who'd never been noteworthy as a heavyweight singles or a contender to any of AJPW big titles. Kind of did it without bitching as well. You can go back to the other thread to find where we talked about bitching out. You're trying to stretch it to cover all forms of selling and giving an opponent offense. No one has ever said that. A fighting chance? Good lord... Ric didn't make it look like his opponents had a fighting chance. He made it look like they were vastly better than he was, often to the point that it looked like Ric *himself* had no fighting chance. Which led to the only way out being fluking though after getting the shit kicked out of him, at times through a Dusty Finish or a Screw Job or The Horsemen Run in. And before someone runs off and claims that I'm saying Ric built 100% of his matches that way, it's not what I'm saying. John

Was Jumbo shaking his head saying "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" while begging off of Misawa on the spot? Or had he been knocked the fuck out? I think you can come up with better examples of Jumbo bitching out like Flair when he was heeling opposite Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi and Kikuchi. John

Who exactly says Flair bitches out the entire match? At some point he needs to be on top to apply the figure four. Now granted... he does bitch out of the face reverses it, and he does bitch out if the face (Any Face) applies to him and happens to apply it better than the Master of the Figure Four and those do more damage to Ric than Ric's own figure four did to the Face. I mean... if they do go to those spots, Ric is bitching out like a MoFo. But yeah, have fun defending Ric's bitchiness by claiming others say he does it 100% of his matches. John

Stiff is a bit like Steve Garvey. Garvey was never as good as he was pushed to be by the majority of the media, nor the millions and millions of fans around the country that voted him onto the all star team time after time. The development of better understanding of statistics found the holes in his game. In turn, stats heads (of which I certain was one going all the way back to the early 80s) took such zeal in using him as one of the poster boys for overrated obsessions on certain stats that we... ended up going to the other extreme. Garvey wasn't a GREAT~! player. However, he was a good player, at his best a very good player. He also was durable and reasonably consistent. For the hole in his game (OBP/BB) that caused him to be overrated, there was a counter hole (brutal home park) that actually made his positive even better than some folks thought. His defense, which was praised that the time (Gold Gloves) then got slogged by early stathead analysis actually came out to be praiseworthy when even better statistical analysis game out. Not an all-time great defensive 1B (such as Keith Hernandez or Pujols), but a very good defender over the... so value added. So over time, Garvey has fallen into the overrated / underrate categories. Stiffness is overrated. It's far from the most important thing in a match. But it has a certain flash, it catches the eye, and once obsessed about it's hard to let go of thinking it's GREAT~! and those who aren't stiff are pussies. The performers themselves, like Garvey, can themselves get obsessed with the flash of stiffness and people's reaction to it, so focus on it that the lose sight of things that would / could / have made them better all around workers / performers. On the other hand, like Garvey... We can get so vehement is saying stiffness is overrated that we lose sight on the bigger picture: some of it can be well done, and be valuable to performance. Very valuable at times. As far as what started this... The Chop at this point, and for probably over 15 years, is a bit like 1984 Steve Garvey. It's no longer very good... it isn't even good... frankly, it sucks from being so overplayed and eventually getting the "WOOOOOOOO~!" chant when EVERYONE does it. It needs to retire, but list 1984 Steve Garvey it has people bamboozled into thinking it's still good, even if not still at his peak. No... it sucks. Far too much stiffness today falls into that category of sucking. I honestly can't think of any stiffness at Mania that I thought was good. Note: that isn't me waxing "I wish it was like the good old days in 1993 when they knew how to do stiffness right!" 90s AJPW Stiffness doesn't do a whole lot for me anymore when I rewatch it.

This is what Will had on his set from the 70s: Stan Hansen vs. The Destroyer (10/30/75) Stan Hansen vs. Bruno Sammartino (4/26/76) Battle Royal (5/8/76) (8mm clips) Stan Hansen & Ivan Koloff vs. Bruno Sammartino & Ivan Putski (7/10/76) (8mm Clips) Stan Hansen vs. Bruno Sammartino (Cage Match) (11/6/76) (8mm Clips) Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki (9/2/77) Stan Hansen vs. Andre the Giant (5/18/79) Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki (6/7/79) Stan Hansen vs. Killer Karl Kox (10/27/79) Stan Hansen & Ole Anderson Interview (11/10/79) Stan Hansen & Ole Anderson vs. Ernie Ladd & Masked Superstar (11/10/79) These matches also aired on Classics and/or were part of Dan's Misc Original NJ TV 74-81 set: 02/02/77 Inoki vs Hansen 10/04/77 Inoki vs Hansen 05/04/79 Inoki & Sakaguchi vs Brisco & Hansen 05/25/79 Inoki vs Hansen 06/01/79 Sakaguchi vs Hansen His available stuff in Japan is very Inoki-driven, which is telling on one level since it was his big feud. On another level, it's pretty narrow in being able to see him work with a variety of people in the 70s like we can with Inoki, Baba, Jumbo... Terry and Dory have a far wider variety of "opponents" to view in Japanese matches in the 70s, and even Billy Robinson does. Will had 8mm of the Bruno-Hansen cage match. The house show version of it got release on 24/7 at some point. The 10/04/76 MSG with Stan Hansen & Nikolai Volkoff vs Ivan Putski & Gorilla Monsoon also hit 24/7, though that's under 8 minutes long... not likely to be worthwhile. Non-Japan 80's stuff would include his three matches with Backlund in 1981 at MSG. All exist and are on Will's set. The first one was quite good, basically working Hansen-style where they're doing "stuff", moving it along rather than working any focused body part for long stretches. Never have cared for the cage match: felt really rushed, poor in contrast to the epic with Slaughter over in Philly in this same time frame.

I really think if you watch those closely you'll see that Ric bitches out to both (and the ref if needed). Steamer and Barry sell more for him that Big Guys, but it doesn't mean that the sum of the match is that they kicked the shit out of The Champ, and The Champ hung on to the title via fluke and/or cheating and/or being out of it at the finish. Sure... but Ronnie kicked the shit out of him more. 67/33? Well... that only happened after Little Ricky pinned The Champ clean in the middle. And Morton is Morton. It would be like comparing how Taue sold for Akiyama in 1993 compared to how he sold for Misawa. I don't think anyone has ever said Ric was a bitch as a babyface. John

Not really.