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jdw

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Everything posted by jdw

  1. A Liger Bomb as a natural counter to a huracan rana is a perfectly fine move to be added to lucha. On powerbombs, one of the early ones that I recall regularly seeing in lucha was Panther doing his version of what we called the Sammy Bomb: El Samurai's jumping power bomb coming down on your knees. If Blue Panther does something, it's cool and acceptable in lucha. I enjoyed Eddy & Art suplexing people all over the place. It fit their super rudo ways, and fit in with them being not exactly pure lucha rudos. Never worried too much about it.
  2. Is a springy mat a common thing in lucha now? Back when we were going to house shows, lucha has the worst mats and "spring" of any rings we'd ever seen. No give, just horrendous.
  3. jdw

    Nobuhiko Takada

    As #7777 to Jerome hitting #6666, let me just say that it's great to see some Takada Luv. A wrestler who entertained me a lot over the years.
  4. I thought Rembert was spotty. I'd replace him with Wesley Morris as more focused and more consistent. Phillips was up-and-down. His sumo thing was highly praised, but it struck me as taking an interesting topic and injecting himself into it rather than focusing on the topic. I thought Barnwell was solid, especially when he stuck to football. Wouldn't disagree with the comment about FO, though might argue with the Rob Neyer analogy. Rob wasn't the best stathead writer of his peak era, and at times was pretty pedestrian. But he did have a big setting to write in, and ended up being a gateway for a lot of people to get into sabermetrics who missed James' peak the prior decade in print format. I think a lot of us knocked Rob for being pedestrian often, but he did play an important role, was really pretty earnest about his efforts, and stayed level headed more than most would. I think Bill was kinda-sorts the same thing. Big soapbox at Grantland relative to FO, regardless of how long folks have been checking out FO. He was earnest in what he did, and avoided being a dick / heatseeker in what he did. I think by the off season and the start of this, he had shed a lot of the Simmons influence in his writing, and a good deal of the old DEAN~! influence as well. Felt like he was growing, and I was/am looking forward to see how he does in the future. That said... I think Mays was the better NFL "writer" in terms of his writing skill, and being able to put together a story/piece. But that was also one of the things that I liked about Grantland: they had space for both Mays and Barnwell to be writing about the NFL in different ways.
  5. jdw

    Mitsuharu Misawa

    The "killing himself for us" is a play both on your prior "died for the sport" line and also a pretty direct quote/paraphrase of what people use to say in the late 90s / early 00s about wrestler doing dangerous stupid stuff for "our" entertainment. On guilt, I'm not sure there are a massive amount of miles between the vibe of watching Benoit and the vibe of watching Misawa, at least for me. It's not really a guilt thing. I avoid Benoit matches simply because ones thoughts quickly go to the deaths. I spent enough time pondering the issue at the time, and don't need a reminder. With Misawa, one also is quickly drawn to thinking about his death, especially when one gets to the headdrops. It's an uncomfortable vibe for me. Doesn't mean that I haven't watched his matches since he died, but there is a different vibe over them than when I originally watched them back in real time. I didn't say it's different. But it's a bit like steroids in baseball, and people trying to draw lines in the 00s or in the Mac-Sosa post-strike years. Those of us who knew about steroids from other sports, or pro wrestling, or our own person experiences, knew about what was going on in baseball comfortably before "our cultural knowledge" caught up with reality. I cited Kikuchi in 1993. It was talked about, to the degree that there might even be a read-between-the-lines comment in the WON by Dave, if not an explicit one. He certainly was explicit with me, as was someone at the time who worked with him a lot in those years. We talked about Foley at the time. The chair shots, hell in the cell, the Rumble against Rock. We knew enough at that point that a lot of people were talking about the stupidity of unprotected chair shots. We also talked about the dangers of All Japan's style, the narrow margins of error, about what a physical mess most of them were, etc. These were things we talked about long before Misawa died: a decade before. When he did die, my mailbox, PM boxes, and phone had a pretty fair number of "this is sad... but we could see it coming with someone, and he was as likely as anyone". So when Jerome makes his comment, it's not really with 2015 CTE eyes on. It's something that a lot of us at the time worried about, talked about... and Misawa was one of the guys at the center of it. :/
  6. jdw

    Mitsuharu Misawa

    We knew at the time it was a dangerous style. We also knew enough about head trauma in the 90s that people already appalled by chair shots, and there was talk about Kikuchi suffering from head issues all the way back to 1993. Perhaps some can absolve themselves with "we didn't know any better", but plenty of us did and talked/wrote about it. In contrast to folks who got hard ons over the "he's killing himself for us!" mentality. Edit add: Jerome was around for many of those discussions, so this isn't anything new for him either.
  7. Care to elaborate? Well one can start off with your time stamps, which aren't actually the match time, and go from there. They don't tie up for the first time at 8:00, but actually 2:30. They tie up again at 2:50, and then after the after the faux ejection they lock up again at the 4:45 to start a roughly three minute sequence of holds exchanged before we get the real ejection sequence starting at 7:35. All of that before your "8:00" mark in the review. It's sloppy or lazy reviewing when using "stamps" to not pay attention to when the match actually starts, and the real match times. I get that you likely watched the Barnett hand held version, with the match starting about 4:15 into the youtube video, rather than the wide high angle single cam shoot that has the bell about 0:10 into the youtube video. I get it because I've seen both over the years, and saw it a third way as well. But folks reading your review don't, and would be misled into thinking 2:30 is 8:00, or into believing that an three minute segment of holds didn't happen before your "They don't actually lock up until the 8-minute mark" comment. I could go on from there pointing out any number of things in the first fall, but will just move ahead to a complete whiff on Santito's selling at the end of the first fall, between falls, and how he comes out wobbly for the second, which contrasts with this: There is story and flow: Rey has Santito rocked bad, to the degree that the time between the falls doesn't help him recover. Rey sees it, and comes out like a monster with the instant drop kick at the bell as Santito is wobbling around. Follows it with a second that tumbles him out of the ring, then nails him with a tope. How badly does he have him hurt? He's confident enough to toss him back in the ring and go for one of his finishers: the springboard huracanrana. How confident? He signals to the crowd that this is it, and Santito was going down in straight falls (something that Psicosis did two years earlier, and Tijuana fans weren't ignorant to their boys history). What happens? Counter into a Liger Bomb for a flash pin. Our Young Hero goes out after the vet like a monster, has him on the ropes, and falls to his own hubris. Others have pointed out that second falls are often short. This was, but it told a story in its short time. Missing again from your review is how Rey sold the fuck out of the flash pin between falls, and this time Santito calls back to the prior fall by hitting the instant dropkick to, but unlike Rey he's more methodical in breaking him down, mixing in big moves (two bulldogs and the diving body attack from the top), submissions, and some of those nifty lucha pinning holds. The actually work in a nice false hope spot that you ignore the point of: whip into the corner with Santito running into Rey's boots to give Rey hope, which he lets go to his head with the charge out of the corner that leads to the really cool counter by Santito by flipping him up into the air face first into the corner. In all, we get close to three minutes of a nice picking apart of Rey by Santito, finishing with a nice moment of Santito going to the well once too often: the third (not second) bulldog attempt. I'm a little scratching my head over your wondering about Rey's gameplan. It's what it always is: hit a big fucking move to pin his opponent. He balances damaging Santito (the two low angle drop kicks, one to the back and one to the front along with the leg lariat) with the springboard moonsault (Santito "saved" by the ropes) and the guillotine legdrop off the top (Santito "saved" by the ropes again). It's a face vs face match, so Rey gives a nod to working it technical style with a couple of submissions attempts. The last transition is another "going to the well too often" moment as Rey goes for another back body drop, and Santito nails him with a running knee lift that Rey bumps nicely for back into the corner. You've got one kneelift by Santito. It was four. These weren't candy ass Ric Flair knee lifts. This was Santito going all Jumbo on his ass just kneelifting the fuck out of him, with Rey selling each one well, getting across initially the rapid shift in momentum and then the escalation of damage as the last one has him going out of the ring to be crushed by Santito's fast and beautiful tope suicida. Rey's toast, and it's just a matter of Santito putting on the family's finisher: the camel clutch. Rey is fucking awesome in escaping it four times. As far as the finish, Rey is going for one of his finishers the springboad huracan rana and is countered by a dropkick to the gut, not by the camel clutch. The clutch gets applied after the counter. Does the springboard move look exactly like the motion of the huracan rana? No, because the counter would kick him in the nuts/balls and positionally risk falling back head/neck into the ropes uncontrolled. So he comes in more springboard body attack / splash, which isn't really one of his moves. It's the same as heels coming off the ropes to eat a punch or a boot: their body direction doesn't really mimic anything real that they use, we know it's a transition spot, so we pretend what they were "really" intending to hit before they were counted. Basically most of the time Arn or Flair come off the corner and eat a shot. Springboad huracan rana? One of Rey's finishers, and a big move. Consistent with what Rey was doing in the third fall: looking for the big move to put Santito away. In turn, Santito was more methodical, looking to take Rey apart, if a pin was there with a big move, he'd take it, and if not he had the clutch as always. Which when deployed, the two used perfectly. People talk about Rey's selling later in his career in the WWF, but he was already back in those days a really good seller of damage. He'd get up and go when it was time to go, but that was a common thing in Lucha... and if we're honest, in damn near all of wrestling. Santito was also a very good seller, and the selling between the first and second fall were things that we saw all the time in building in that era. # # # # # Is it a great match? No. I don't think anyone pimps it as that. But it was a shitload of fun in the building. In part because we thought Carlos would run some bullshit finish to get Rey the win, and that didn't happen. It was straight, clean, and after the early bullshit they wrestled a match that was fitting with what Rey was up to at that time, and what Santito had been up to in his AAA days. It was filled with a lot of stuff that people from that era would recognize as Rey and Santito spots. It's pretty fun on video to watch again for the first time in more than a decade. Is it a great review? No. It's lazy, errant at various points from the start to the finish, and consistently missing the boat. I frankly went light on it and could have pointed out more. It's like a * star review, if that. # # # # # Elaborated enough, or do I need to touch on more? # # # # # Edit: "These were candy ass Ric Flair knee lifts." to "These weren't candy ass Ric Flair knee lifts."
  8. I'd offer up that pretty much every time I watch a Terry Funk match with Yohe, he finds Terry's selling appropriate for almost *any* moment in the match. Here at PWO and various places that "think like us" see Terry as a God of Selling, and we eat up all his carny bullshit goofball nutty theatrical over-the-top selling like it's manna from heaven. At some point, a decade and a half ago, one of us started making the argument that Terry's selling was fucking GREAT~! I don't know if it was Jewett (who always loved Terry's carny shit) or Dylan or if it's something the DVDVR Boyz are going to claim. But someone tossed out that idea that slithered up out of the oooooooozzzze, and over time we all accepted it. Yes, Terry's selling is fucking silly as all shit, but we love that silly shit. I'm tossing this one out: Steamer's selling is fucking great. It's pro wrestling. Not a thing Flair does is believable, pretty much all of it is over the top, but we accept it because it's pro wrestling bullshit. Same goes for Steamer. I don't want him to sell like Misawa, or Bret, or Hogan, or Toyota, or Kobashi, or pull a strap down like Lawler. Rick sells like Rick Steamboat, and it's glorious.
  9. I love Steamboat's theatrical selling. For fuck's sake, this is a board that's going to have over-the-top theatrical guys like Lawler, Terry, Flair and Fujiwara high in the GWE poll. Steamer's selling was great.
  10. jdw

    Jim Duggan

    Yep, that is what I mean you have to be super positive all the time. Typing out, "it's nothing special" means absolutely nothing. Was he good or bad and why? If you don't think he's very good, explain why. If you think he's just ok, but not deserving of his list, explain why. I could go through every thread and say this guy is special, this guys is nothing special. What would that accomplish? Give us some insight, otherwise you just come off as dismissive. You can like and dislike anything you want I don't care. Just stating it without explanation just seems utterly pointless and attention grabbing. Jerome is putting quick takes in a number of wrestler's threads to capture what he currently feels about them. I could get knocking him for not adding anything if he was a poster who has a track record of writing pithy, short comments. But Jerome has written at length about a slew of these wrestlers in other threads, be they match threads, be they wrestler discussions (like that dozen or so Flair threads we've had over the years), or in themed bases threads such as the Death of WCW and countless others. He's got 6657 posts under his belt. He kind of warrants the right to put over those he liked, who he thought we okay, and who didn't do much for him. There wasn't a single post in the Candy Okutsu thread in the year since it opened, and even that starter post drew flies. Jerome searched it out, and posted a quick comment on here. Lots of sacred cows have had comments on them like Jerome did on Duggan. People take shots at Jumbo, Flair, Bret, etc. Lots of the comments are pithy. Some are pretty blistering. Duggan isn't a sacred cow, and any number of us might not have lost our shit over his Mid South work (and other Mid South work) as others have. There isn't anything wrong with what or how he tossed out, other than probably some folks like Duggan and others don't.
  11. The review of Santito vs Rey makes my head hurt.
  12. Hashimoto vs Ogawa, their second series.
  13. Dave put people in the HOF that he thought were bad workers. So if current voters don't vote for bad workers, it's their own fault, not Dave's. I'm saying for the current nominees going forward. There have been slam dunk candidates who he doesn't like as workers - I would guess you're referring to guys like Hogan, Rock, maybe Mascaras (not sure of his opinion on him). I was thinking more in terms of who Dave put in: largely the 1996 & 1997 class, along with non-elected Old Timers since then. Rock was voted in, so we'll deal with him in a different bucket. Looking at the 1996 & 1997 classes, these would be guys that at the time Dave didn't think we good workers: Abdullah the Butcher Perro Aguayo Andre the Giant Shohei "Giant" Baba Bobo Brazil Billy Graham Hulk Hogan Mil Mascaras Kintaro Oki Dusty Rhodes Rikidozan The Road Warriors Antonino Rocca Bruno Sammartino The Sheik I'm not saying that he thought all of them were horrific workers. But he didn't think any were good, and most of them bad. He wasn't high on The Crusher or Dick the Bruiser. I don't recall him being super high on Maurice Vachon as a worker, but guys like Kevin (khawk) and the late Jim Zordani (Clawmaster) would agree that Dave didn't think much of many of the top AWA guys, including Verne while also underrating all-time greats like Robinson. I don't think he saw Fritz Von Erich as a good worker in 1996, but as a big star and a successful promoter. His old timer sources like Thesz crapped on Gorgeous George and Bronko Nagurski. Thesz likely crapped on Édouard Carpentier as well, and Dave had no reference point on him, hence him not getting in until 1997 when seeing the error of our ways. I'm not entirely sold that he thought Dump Matsumoto was a good worker, but instead a great heel character who was booked terrifically against an Ultimate Babyface like Chigusa. The key for all these guys is that they were Major Stars, with most of them among the very biggest of stars in their era or area. Not being a good work wasn't a dead end for Dave when it came to putting in people. Someone else can count up how many that is. It's more than Hogan, or Hogan & Mil. In 2004, Undertaker and Backlund went in. Dave didn't really think either was a good worker. We've dug up some quotes here and there where he's said some positive things about Backlund, but far more often he's been crapped on. The incomplete History of the WWWF/WWF/WWE Title series covered Backlund in full, and by full I mean full of all the old myths were recycled. Here's an old thread on Classics after the series came out: http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000119;p=0 As for Taker, 2004 was before he got a much more respectful rep for his big matches. By that point, there were a ton of times that Taker's work had been knocked over the prior 15 years. Yet they still got voted in. Dave never thought Konnan was a good worker. He was a bit too nice to call him bad, since Carlos was a friend. I don't think that Dave ever thought Curtis Iaukea was a good worker. Good gimmick, but not Dave's idea of a good worker. Dave is fully Thesz title on Hans Schmidt not being a good worker. It doesn't matter how many time some of us called him a Stan Hansen type of worker for his era, Dave never bought it. We still voted him in. For much of his career, Dave didn't think Kensuke Sasaki was a good worker. I zoned out of Dave's rating puroresu guys in the mid-00s, so it's likely that stuff like the Kobashi match started to get Sasaki respect from Dave. But flat out, Sasaki was thought of by him as one of the lesser heavyweights of his era. Non-HOFers like Koshinaka and Jun he thought were better, and he had Taue's peak well above Sasaki's peak. People still voted Sasaki in. Hell, Sakagughi was a threat to get in, and Dave thought he was a choad as a worker. So... Any number of bad workers get on the ballot. Take that question up in the WON Awards Thread, and I'm sure folks will go digging back through the ballots to see all the non-good / mediocre / bad workers that have made the ballot. I have a ballot. I don't find JYD to be a "good" worker, even watching his Mid-South stuff. Effective? Yeah, I guess. He doesn't do much for me. Do the non-work elements of his career warrant a place on the ballot? Sure, and he has been on the ballot a lot. I don't see why Dave has to think Fujiwara's matches are transcendent or influential. Dave watched them when they happened, before any of the rest of us. He found Sayama transcendent and influential. If you asked people in Japan in the 80s which one was transcendent and influential, they would say Sayama. In the 90s? Sayama. In the 00s? Sayama. In the 10's? Sayama. It's just some of our circle who think Fujiwara is transcendent. And the key there is "some". We're a niche within a niche of a niche, and the Fujiwara Marks who think he's transcendent are a just a niche within that niche within a niche of a niche. Hell, one can think Fujiwara was an excellent worker at his best without thinking he was transcendent. So we're probably better off not thinking Fujiwara is one of the ten names handed down on the tablets from the Gods of Wrestling when it might be just some of us who think it. I haven't kept up on what Dave has to say about Suzuki. I like the guy's work from time to time, like fucking with NOAHism againt Kobashi... before jobbing to NOAHism in the very same match. There have been other times when I was bored shitless by his work. I think he's a goofy HOF candidate, just as Funaki and Sak are goofy HOF candidates. As far as guys he doesn't like, the best example off the list up above is Sheik. He hated Sheik's work, and has very little positive to say about him other than stuff like he drew a long time in Detroit which he would balance out with the fact that he eventually killed Detroit. Generally doesn't like him at all. On the other hand, Sheik was a big national and international star for a long time. Dave gave no thought to Sheik's Hall of Fame worthiness, with a simple "Yes" before we moved onto the next guy in that 1000 magazine. I'd also point to Dusty. We've had a decade or so of Dusty love, and respect for Dusty once his career ended, and once he stopped being an Evil Rival to Our Hero Ric. But Dave hated Dusty through most of the 80s, didn't care for him with the Book when he came back to WCW, and didn't have a lot of love for him in 1996 when the first class was drawn up. None of it matter: Dusty was a no brainer. The Road Warriors were the same, with an element of personal heat between Hawk and Dave that I got to see first hand. Didn't matter: the Warriors were pretty much a no brainer for Dave. * * * * * It's actually the opposite: Dave cuts a great deal of slack for people he thinks are great workers. He advocated Shawn at a time when Shawn's career drawing power was light, and his influence was overrated. Toyota? Work. Hokuto? Work. Steamboat? Work was the driving force, as he wasn't a big national star when it comes to drawing. Dynamite Kid? Work and what Dave saw as influence. Benoit? Work. Liger? Work. That are others...
  14. Dave put people in the HOF that he thought were bad workers. So if current voters don't vote for bad workers, it's their own fault, not Dave's.
  15. Agreed. It was probably never a long-term sustainable enterprise, but I always appreciated that Simmons used his juice to create something legitimately interesting. I think it might have been sustainable if ESPN knew how to monitize it. Perhaps not to massive "We need more staff!!!!" levels that Simmons wanted. But when people say Simmons annual income off the new podcast is $5M, and that Grantland's total income was $6M a year... you know that ESPN had no clue on how to make money off things like podcasting, or the other things the site did. I'm not saying that they could have made it a cash cow. But they likely could have done a better job on revenue, then create a reasonable budget for Simmons: "You make $X. The streams are A, B, C and D. There isn't massive revenue growth potential on A & B... that's just the way the advertising business is. However, we could make more off C & D if you're able to find people who generate more volume Y. Who can you grow into that by having them be more prolific, or who can we bring in whose balance of salary+revenue generation would merit it?" With say A & B being perhaps something around straight web based advertising, which remains an area that doesn't generate a ton of money and even upping the page views by a large amount isn't going to sake a revenue tree much. With C&D being something along the lines of podcasting, where more content and more listens with better use of advertising might shake the tree a good deal more, as seen in Simmons own podcast. John
  16. I'll miss the heck out of it. A number of writers that I came to read all the time, like Lowe and Wesley. Some that grew well in the job, like Barnwell. It was always a place I went to find some reading material for lunch.
  17. http://deadspin.com/espn-has-killed-grantland-1739659651 Not a surprise, but handled in brutal fashion.
  18. I was worried you were a Queens fan. Isn't Dave? I don't recall Dave following the NBA back when we talked. Certainly not as a serious fan, like Keller is of the Wolves. On the "Queens", my girlfriend was a Kings fan in the Webber era. I remember watching Game 1 of the classic 2002 WCF with her. Lakers won 106-99, and I was loving all the fouls called on Vlade, Webber and Chistie. My girlfriend and I didn't talk the rest of the series. I ended up watched the rest of the series with noted Lakers Fan Steve Yohe, and the series remains a sore spot between my girlfriend and me.
  19. I've been a Lakers Fan since the early 70s. Was before Kobe, was during Kobe, and will after he goes to the glue factory. One can appreciate and acknowledge the greatness of Kobe even while stating that the fashion in which he's played the game (and still does) annoys the fuck out of me. It's the flaw of growing up watching the Walton Gang at UCLA, and then mature as a NBA fan watching Magic. I just prefer that type of team player rather than the "win on my terms" mentality of Kobe. Doesn't mean that I didn't rank him in my Top 10. And that's the analogy that I drew to Kobashi. Increasingly annoyed me as time went on, to the point that he captures a lot of what I don't like about a generation (or two) of work. But 1993 was off the charts, he was good before that, and had stuff after that I like. Have to give him credit.
  20. I don't think Dave hated Alabama wrestling. It's just that when you're tracking 15-20 promotions and watching a ton of stuff in 1982-85 before everything started dying, where would Bama rate? Especially since it's not like main event stuff was as easy to get your hands on as it was with other promotions. Hence "didn't care for" - it just didn't rate all that high. Though I'm sure there are folks who loved the Fullers and Armstrongs more than anything in the world.
  21. Which is why he liked the Mid Atlantic territory, loved his summers in Florida watching that territory, and spoke highly of Georgia. He was in Texas at its peak, and has praised the era for decades while admitting the flaws/errors/fuckton of dope. He loved WattsLand. On the flip side, he didn't care for the Alabama promotion, though it wasn't widely traded. And he was up-and-down on Memphis. 4 that he loved/praised. One that he was mixed about. One he generally ignored. That's before getting into SMW that he liked before it started to fade/fall. Dave's pretty okay with southern wrestling. He had other issues with Memphis.
  22. I'm with Daniel: I hate ladder matches in general. There have been plenty of shitty cage matches, but a good cage match can be pretty cool.
  23. Dave did an "analysis" thingy of 10,000+ cards once upon a time, I think from data that Matt gave him. At the time, any number of us thought that Dave's analysis was off base.
  24. Nash is up there with Russo as the classic "unreliable narrator" of the era, so everything he says is grain of salt material. The idea doesn't fit much into Hogan's typical thinking at the time. He was getting his belt back, after jobbing it cleanly. He played smart backstage games to box promoters and promotions into decisions. He typically didn't go with batshit crazy ideas when it came to winning his belts back. It actually fits more into Nash and Eric's "thinking too much" mentality. Nash had the most to benefit from by not having a real match, taking the legdrop, eating the pin, and coming across in a feud with Hogan where he would have had a tough time coming out looking cool or strong.
  25. I made a case for Toyota as a top 10 pick in the GWE folder and I'd really be interested in hearing your response to that. I thought it was a really good post. Hard to add anything, or pick at anything, since I'm really far removed from watching anything of her's. I don't think I've watched anything in the past decade other than Dream Rush, which would have been shortly after your review. About as much as I can toss out is what was summed up in that post in the other thread.
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