jdw

September 1999 - Sullivan/Taylor/committee October 1999 - 1/16/00 - Russo/Ferrera 1/16/00 - 4/1/00 - Sullivan/Taylor/Ferrera/committee 4/10/00 - a week after Halloween Havoc (I think) - Russo/Bischoff 11/00 - 3/26/01 - Ace/Taylor/Ferrera John

After reading CFC's comment, I was going to bring up Lowe... and was glad to see Childs and Bigelow beat me to it. A very good writer, is regular in producing content, breaks things down in ways that are easy to understand, will write both shorter and longer items, and has that section at the end of things he likes / doesn't like that gets across he's a NBA Fan in addition to be a writer / analyst. He also clearly has developed sources within the game in coaching staffs and front offices. Very good at what he does. Barnwell was with Football Outsiders for 6+ years. I read of FO regularly, but folks whose opinions I respect on football say positive things about how FO has move writing and analysis on football far beyond the old hack days. I don't know Jonah Keri... just don't follow baseball like I use to. But one gets the sense from the hiring of Lowe and Barnwell that Simmons was going to hire a similar type of person for baseball. He's a Prospectus guy, so that fits the bill. I agree on Andy Greenwald. He writes about a lot of shows that I don't watch or care for... but he writes about so much television that he'll hit something in your wheelhouse, and you'll be blown away by how spot on it is. Anyone who watched cooking shows on TV over the years probably will get this: Eat Bray Love: The corruption of Anthony Bourdain, the return of Emeril Lagasse, and the state of food television That's just a fantastic piece that bounces all over the place... except it's totally focused on where it's going. I'm a long time watcher of this stuff, going back to Julia and the Galloping Gourmet in the 70s, all sorts of PBS stuff in the 80s, the dawn of Food TV in the 90s and the evolution of television FoodTainment (the food equiv of Vince's vision of Sports Entertainment)... and guys like Bourdain pulling it back from the depths with No Reservations. So that Greenwald piece hits so many marks that I really wish he'd write a book on the history/evolution of subject rather than doing recaps on stuff like Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. There are a heck of a lot of good writers over there. There are some guys being hip... but even a lot of them can toss out wickedly entertaining shit. The one of TV Opening Credit Fonts of the 90s was fantastic and funny. John

Snowden has done some pieces on how what a fighter "makes" isn't really what he makes. The costs / expenses eat a ton of it up. John

I see it on Lynch's list on his August-September 1991 TV tape: September 4 Tokyo (AJ) 8. Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi 9. Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue Looking at the times: Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi (18:36) Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue (26:34) I'm guessing there was some editing going on. Looking at Dan's times for the big card in April: 4/28/91 (taped 4/18/91) 1. Kobashi vs. Dan Kroffat 4:48 shown 2. Jumbo vs. Misawa 23:26 shown 5/5/91 (taped 4/18/91) 1. Kawada vs. Taue 15:53 shown 2. Gordy/Williams vs. Hansen/Spivey 14:42 shown It would seem like they would have to cut down 18:36 + 26:34, especially since the tag title with the submission would be given a chunk of pre-match and post match time as well. Maybe a heck of a lot, since if Dave gave it a star rating, it didn't make it to the AJPW Star Ratings list when Chris compiled it (while the tag title match did). I'm not even sure if I've got that one at home. It doesn't look like this tv show made Dan's 1991 set.

What Childs says. He's had a few pieces that were okay, but they don't stick with you (I can't remember them). But for the most part... it's pretty throw away. I remain stunned that Dave, who has a track record with Simmons, didn't try for an MMA job at Grantland and try to hook someone else up as the weekly wrestling writer. John

Someone needs to hip Snowden to the "lots of guys a lot of money" comment. John

I know wrestlers' memories tend to be swiss cheese, but Tito lost the belt only a month after they started doing the Liz/Savage/Steele angle which in those days was too soon to know if something was getting over or not. This is an interesting one that probably has some truth in it, even if Tito actually *did* get a long with with Savage. WWF @ Tampa, FL - SunDome - December 19, 1985 Saturday Night's Main Event #4 - 1/4/86 on NBC (10.4) Randy Savage (w/ Miss Elizabeth) pinned George Steele (w/ Capt. Lou Albano) at 4:06 with a double axe handle after Steele became distracted by Elizabeth; Dean Malenko was the referee for the bout; after the contest, Savage carried Elizabeth over his shoulder backstage So it was taped on 12/19/85, and aired on 1/4/86. They instantly ran another angle off it at the next taping: WWF @ Poughkeepsie, NY - Mid-Hudson Civic Center - January 7, 1986 Championship Wrestling taping: 1/25/86 - aired SNME match (to set up the angle) 2/1/86 - included George Steele & Capt. Lou Albano as guests of Piper's Pit in which Albano said Miss Elizabeth was a nice woman but was under the influence of Randy Savage; the segment ended with Steele chasing Bob Orton Jr. off the set after he motioned that Elizabeth stunk So they had to know they had something... or that Vince simply liked it a lot. First known house show with it: WWF @ Richmond, VA - Coliseum - January 18, 1986 (11,910; 10,388 paid; sell out) Randy Savage vs. Geroge Steele Next tapings they went even stronger to it with now a third angle and a dark match: WWF @ Poughkeepsie, NY - Mid-Hudson Civic Center - January 28, 1986 Championship Wrestling taping: 2/8/86 - Randy Savage (w/ Miss Elizabeth) pinned Paul Dose at the 23-second mark with the flying elbowsmash; prior to the bout, George Steele came out and gave Elizabeth a bouquet of flowers; when Savage noticed the flowers, he stole them from her and destroyed them Dark match after the taping: George Steele vs. Randy Savage This all leading up to Savaging beating Tito for the belt. Of course Tito-Savage would work five straight MSG cards, and headline all over the place. The feud would go into the summer. It wasn't a short program. But there also is a sense that Vince saw something overall big in Savage, beyond just the angle with Steele happening to prove Vince was right. Hogan-Savage was already going around the horn, starting at the late-Dec MSG card. This even as they were going to put focus on Hogan-Bundy for Mania. In a sense, Savage was getting booked against the two babyface champs: the biggest star in the promotion (Hogan) and another key face they had been pushing since the start of expansion (Tito). Savage was also so big that he got a third feud at the same time: with Animal. That's... someone they really knew they had something special in. John

We were young and dumb. Now we're old and... er... something. John

My recollection is that earlier in the series (or year) Misawa injured the shoulder, hence the shoulder being an issue here. In fact, I seem to recall there was some thought they would job the tag title here because of it... another reason the submission of Jumbo was such a surprise. They really needed more of these. John

The place doesn't feel biased towards Flair. I would expect Flair to win a vote among long term hardcore fans. 67.53% vs 32.47% isn't terribly far off from where I'd expect it, with probably a decent number of the "Bret Voters" actually "I'm Fucking Tired Of Flair" voters. One likely would get more Bret Voters on a place that's WWF-centric. That's not really the same as a place where you've got puro fans, British fans, lucha fans, grabage fans, indy fans, territory era fans, modern WWE fans, etc. Like here. I mean... I don't really want to see anymore Flair matches, while I'm perfectly okay if someone puts on a Bret match at one of our wrestling get togethers. But those numbers are what I'd expect. John

Maeda didn't have many natives when he launched: they largely went with Takada and Fujiwara to their respective promotions. It took Rings years to develop native talent, along with some of it (like Tamura) coming in from elsewhere. Their results are here: http://prowrestlinghistory.com/shoot/rings/ringsindex.html You'll see guys popping up over time, but even someone like Kohsaka that we associate with the them in the mid-90s didn't show up until Aug 1994. Yamamoto was May 1992. Etc. Nagai was the one who stuck around for a long time that was there at the beging.

They put Trip-Taker on in the middle of the card last year, before the HOF. That did seem to break things up. Wonder if they should have done it this year. There also was some fatigue with the Rock-Cena video packages. Overkill on some level. John

And like a true heel, after injuring him, Harley did the job at Final Fourcade to put the Cardinals over for the Title. John

BTW - did anyone get a screencap of the Blue Blazer sign at Mania? John

I'm not sure how that fits with what you said about the matches. The undercard: 1 - disappointing 1 - forgetful 1 - fun popcorn match (which is kind of faint praise) 1 - really dug 1 - not as shitty as we think I don't know... that's kind of in line with what most people have said: - Shield and Tag Title match were watchable / good / entertaining - Del Rio-Swagger and Ryback-Henry were mediocre - Jericho-Fandango was a spotfest by Jericho, which worked/didn't work largely based on whether people gave a shit about Fandango So you're not terribly off from people there. That also doesn't exactly make for a Great~! undercard. It's not like someone snuck into the undercard with a MOTYC or even a MOTNC. Then the mains? You liked that... but it seems like everyone liked that as the best match on the night. Even people who are critical of the match cop to it being a WWE Spectacle that generally delivered. But the others? You thought one sucked (more than most here), while the other didn't deliver and didn't have any heat. One good main event, two good undercard matches, and one undercard match that you liked more than most. One awful main event and one failed main event, along with two disappointing undercard matches. That's a great card? Yow... John

Not a title match. C&P from Masa since my spreadsheet is home: April 18, 1991---Nippon Budokan, Tokyo World Tag Team title match 04/18/91: Stan Hansen & Danny Spivey beat Steve Williams & Terry Gordy (20:40 Hansen beat Williams)---Hansen & Spivey became the 15th champions July 6, 1991---Yokosuka City Gym, Kanagawa World Tag Team title match Steve Williams & Terry Gordy beat Stan Hansen & Danny Spivey (20:38 Gordy beat Spivey)---Williams & Gordy became the 16th champions July 24, 1991---Ishikawa Prefecture Industrial Hall, Kanazawa World Tag Team title match Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada beat Steve Williams & Terry Gordy (28:00 Misawa beat Gordy)---Misawa & Kawada became the 17th champions So this was between Gordy & Doc's 2nd and 3rd title reign. John

Bumping... just because it seems relevant with Trip putting himself over Brock and yesterday again not really making much forward movement of the next generation of stars. John

Saw this at Casa del Hoback with the following crowd: * 2 - hardcores (Hoback & jdw) * 1 - former 90s APW trainee * 3 - long time WWF fans starting in the 80s/90s * 2 - 9th graders who are fans of the current product So this was very much different from the usually Hoback-Yohe-Williams trio who would watch a bunch of great 70s/80s/90s matches for hours before the PPV, then gripe about why the WWE stuff wasn't as good as the Jumbo-Kerry or Santo-Panther stuff we watched earlier in the day. Overall... the show felt flat for much of it, with on tv it seeming like the crowd largely showed up to see Taker and Rock-Cena. The only thing on the undercard that seemed to get much heat was the Tag Title, and that was short to the point that they didn't really have time for the crowd to not-give-a-shit. The other thing that had heat was Jericho's entrance, but the heat seemed to crap out once Fandango actually started working. Interesting that they cut out all of the promos, backstage stuff and other bullshit. It was just matches and promo pieces. Even with that, they ran short on time and cut the Standard Women's Match Before The Main Event(s). On the matches: * Randy Orton & Sheamus & Big Show vs The Shield Not terribly interesting, seemed to have lost the crowd both in the Stadium and the Hoback living room when it went into Show In Peril. To the point that the Hoback, his friend who trained in APW and I were asking each other, "Who decided when laying this out to have Show In Peril?" rather than Sheamus. I enjoyed Orton getting pinned, as 100% of his performance in the match reminded me who I hate 100% of him as a sports entertainer. * Ryback vs Mark Henry About that Ryback monster push... Anyway, dead crowd made what felt like a plodding match more plodding. This may have worked as a main event of SmackDown or Raw with a hotter crowd into the characters. Here... it was 80K fans, of which 75K seemed to want to watch Rock and Taker. * Daniel Bryan & Kane vs Big E Langston & Dolph Ziggler Crowd was into it relative to most of the undercard, but it was short and they moved things along. Can't knock it, but it would have been a throwaway at that length on TV let along a PPV. Chris Jericho vs Fandango The crowd in Casa del Hoback hated Fandango, with one exception. The hate wasn't heel hate either: it was XPac style "Get The Hell Of My TV" level hate. It didn't seem like the fans in the Stadium cared about him either. This match just seemed to die, despite Jericho busting his ass to Do Stuff in his own sloppy fashion. Alberto Del Rio vs Jack Swagger Del Rio's cross armbreakers were cool, especially his finisher. The match... another one that felt flat. It wasn't flat in a Fandango fashion, but in a "who gives a fuck... can we get to the Big Matches" fashion. Felt more due to Swagger, as Del Rio was connecting on some level with the crowd. Honestly... Dutch added nothing to Swagger in this setting. He tried hard to insult everyone under the sun in the opening, though he forgot to say something along like lines of "speaking jive" or "speaking that hip hop nonsense". But the reaction to that was lighter than one would think. Once the match started, he didn't really do enough. Kind of strange/stupid. Anyway... eh. The card at this point was generally dying. Can't say that's great for the WWE given who was in the final three matches: Taker - 20+ year vet, rarely works Punk - current "newish" top star Trip - near 20 year vet, rarely works, generally phased himself out Brock - Champ for the first time 10+ years ago , works limited Cena - current top star, on top for close to a decade Rock - guest star from the past generation I get that it's Mania, and this stuff has been driving the box office at Mani for the past several shows and they've made a ton of money off that. But 2/6 in the three main events being of the Current Generation, one of them a true anchor (though he's draw the past two years due to Rock) and the other... the crowd reaction made it nakedly obvious that he wasn't close to true anchor level for a show like this. * Undertaker vs CM Punk Good match. If there was a negative to it, it's that no one in the crowd thought Punk had a chance of winning. Staggering lack of heat for his stuff on Taker. They did get a pop for the Last Ride + Urn Shot, but I don't think it was close to the best near-fall pops that Shawn and Trip got on Taker. But other than that, it was very clear that the fans just didn't take Punk being on a level with Taker at Mania with The Streak on the Line. It's doubtful that if Punk beat Taker reasonably clean + injury angle at say Surviors that folks would even think Punk was at the level to put Taker at risk of losing The Streak... but you have to wonder if something like that might have helped. Feel bad for it on that level. Not sure if Punk really wanted to be Streak Fodder, but he did work hard once the bell rung... and Taker seems to fire up for his One Big Match A Year to have a spectacle. It's funny in this streak of Shawn-Shawn-Trip-Trip-Punk that the vast majority of the things in the five matches that I didn't like were due to Shawn, Trip and Punk... and it's Taker whose performance tend to surprise and please me in the "I don't know how his broken down body does this shit" fashion. Anyway... good match, they hit their marks well enough. Just lacking people thinking Punk had a chance. * Bangs The Boss’ Daughter vs Brock Lesnar It's nice to be reminded why I hate Bangs. The only good thing about this clusterfuck was that people didn't give a shit about it until the end. It's staggering that Trip would book himself (or allow himself to be booked into) going over Brock in this match. * The Rock vs John Cena Solid enough on some level, but last year's felt better, had more crowd heat, and more doubt. They tried... but there really wasn't an extra gear they could kick it into, either in terms of work or in terms of a storyline. I did like how they played off last year. I don't care for just obvious My Turn, Your Turn work. It's a broken record, but this pretty much needed a Cena heel turn to take it beyond last year's match. Probably also needed Cena to cap it by calling out Taker after the match, saying Taker had been dodging putting The Streak up against him for years, and the only way to get the match was to force the issue. What he just did to Rock was to force it. Or some such nonsense. Which wouldn't have been quite the finish the fans in the building wanted, but given them a double Holy Shit: first Cena turning in the match, then calling out Taker to demand The Streak Match at the next Mania. John

I find it funny that I can go back to the first post and still vote. *clicks through the thread* Wait... quickly scanning the 18 pages of the thread: I haven't offered a single opinion about either of them. Hmm... at some point in the past decade Bret vs Flair must have become as interesting to me as The Montreal Screwjob. John

I assume for either Lawler or the Fabs to beat in a program as the passed through? John

That would be one to ask KHawk about. I don't recall the Warriors being seen as a massive draw in the AWA. On the other hand, one gets a sense that Vince would have done better with them than Verne or Crockett/Dusty. Though perhaps not, since he didn't do well with them when he got them. The problem with the Warriors is that you do need to feed them red meat. I think putting Big Fat Guys against them, such as Quake & Typhon, was a mistake. The Warriors just didn't look impressive against guys who were bigger, and against whom they couldn't do all their Cool Shit against. It's one thing to put them up against other muscle heads (Russians and Powers of Pain), where the Warriors just come off as the baddest ass of that type. Big Fat Guys... not great. John

Wasn't one of them the guy who went on to trap RF? Xavier something-or-other? Seem to recall he was hardcore into Russo. John

Loss: can you use your Supreme Being Powers to edit the first post. Jerry said he did on the second page, but he seemed to miss the level of detail that Tim and then I point on for the "post-Nash to the end" period: Russo was in a strange roll prior to that as he did a lot of work at home selling PCS while being worried about his job. He was officially out at the 10/23 Nitro/Thunder tapings when Terry & Ace took over. Eric... he wasn't really involved a ton for quite a while prior to that. Eric had some big picture stuff, but I suspect by the time of the Bash (i.e. shoot on Hogan), he was fading and instead was focusing on lining up money marks to buy WCW. I would tag it as "Russo" through all of that period. John I haven't checked to see if others have detailed dates/months in the thread as well, but since the first post has the chance to be a useful long term reference piece, we might want to get it as detailed/accurate as possibly. John

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=18392 EDIT: actually two not that I went back and looked: 03/30/91 Naoki Sano vs Masa Funaki (Lynch SWS #4) 04/01/91 Naoki Sano vs Masa Funaki (Lynch SWS #5) Not "shoot" in the sense of one of the shoot promotions, which would be the case with Shammy-Sano. But shoot-ish, and probably the reason why PWFG looked to bring him in for more matches. John