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A good addition in the comments section: Bugs was successful despite breaking the rules on face-heel and face-in-peril structure because he was such a great worker. He worked with a ton of stooge heels who WB Creative didn't bother to even try to make look good or strong, but Bugs was so good in "making" the scenes that the heels just needed to stooge and bump their asses off for Bugs. Tweety comes across as the nasty little bastard, while Bugs comes across as the guys out smarting the heels who often are given chances to just move along. I also think Bugs eats the fall more often than the writer implies. He lost all three matches with Cecil Turtle in a six year feud. It's one thing for Bugs to put him over in Tortoise Beats Hare, which was only Bugs' third main event (or second if you consider the Jones booked Elmer's Pet Rabbit to be the same worker rabbit as in Elmer's Candid Camera)and WB Creative wasn't yet sure just how HUGE Bugs would get. It's another thing entirely for Bugs to be willing to lay down yet again for Cecil in 1947 after returning from WWII as a patriotic war hero and super over babyface draw. Yet Bugs did it, even working a reverse Dusty finish where it looked like he won the world title from Cecil only to be dq'd for admitting to heeling it up and getting dragged off by "security". John

One item I intentionally mentioned was the difference between seeing Bruce once on a tour and seeing him 5-10 times on a tour. The more you see him, the more clear the structure is. When you see him across different tours, you also will see similar "changed arrangements" like Reason To Believe that wouldn't be so radical to you of you only saw one of the tours. As a lot of us have said, you were unlikely to see Flair "once on a tour". TV and PPV are the obvious ones to point to, but also old school house shows: if you went to six JCP shows a year, it's like seeing six Bruce shows. The toss off the top rope is fresh the first time like the body surfing, but eventually it's not a surprise. You may still find it cool / fun / entertaining, but it's not fresh anymore. Other elements of Shtick and Structure are there to see, if you care to look for them. If the structure of someone who tries hard to change things up like Bruce is obvious when you look for it, then what does it say for Flair? We've all said that Flair has been as exposed of a "great" as there ever had been up to that point. It means more of his stuff was there for us to see, and even more of it now that we go looking for it. That's great if you love his work. I for one did, and loved whenever something of his was available to see. But that also started in 1986... 26 years ago... it's a lot. I don't think I want to see the band version of Reason To Beleive six times a year, let alone a dozen. The song came out four years before I started watching wrestling. I've seen it in it's original acoustic form a number of times, and of course have heard it that way for three decades. I've even seen the Bruce+Morello version of it on video. But... I don't want to see it live a load of times. I want to hold onto the feeling I had when they went off into, quickly realizing what it was, and just popping. With Flair, that's pretty hard. Ric is Born To Run, Badlands, Thunder Road, Promised Land.... those you've seen live a dozen times over the near-30 years you've been going to his shows. Some of them, like Born To Run, you'd just as soon not have to hear every time... but it's in the set list and the crowd is popping. Others like Thunder Road are one of your favorites, and the hell with all the people who are tired of hearing it... YOU want Bruce to roll that one out every time you're in the building. What you want out of them is for him to be solid, entertaining, not make you feel like he's going through the motions on this one even thought he's been playing it live longer than you've been going to the shows. Ric is Jungleland when he's rambling on and on in a long match. He done all these spots before. Sometimes he's really feeling it and giving everything he's got into it... and the thing is, he's such a Performer that you haven't got a freaking clue if he's really feeling it, or if he just a Pro in making you think that. Ric is Dancing in the Dark in a throw away match that you know isn't all that good when you're watching it, but Flair's busting his ass to make it work and *is* connecting with the crowd. Ric's a whole set list of that. There is no Reason To Believe because Ric wouldn't make an acoustic album type of a match to being with, then come across the right opponent, take that match, and turn it into a full band version of it. Ric is full band all the time because that's what works for him. Ric couldn't do Wrestling Hamlet if his life depended on it, probably not because he didn't have the ability to do it if he started studying back in the 70s... but because Much Ado About Nothing and it's type of plays have worked for him, he did them to big numbers and response, and who needs Hamlet because this pro wrestling shit ain't highbrow. Or something like that... John

He played 106 songs on the four shows, 55 different songs. Though 12 of those songs were generally "locked in", so it's really 43, of which some were semi-fixtures during this period of the tour. So in a sense he does mix it up. But is there common structure, and certainly shtick. * Opening - Opener & Rockers Three of the shows opened with Land of Hope and Dreams to try to set the theme for the shows. The one that didn't was the tour finale, where he took a request from a guest backstage and opened solo with an obscure song off the Working on a Dream album. Admittedly, that is one of the interesting reasons for going to see Bruce: he will pull stuff out of left field. In turn, the opening song typically is followed with some rockers to pull the crowd into the show. Land of Hope and Dreams isn't one of his hits, nor one of his non-hit warhorses (like say the non-hit "Darkness on the Edge of Town"). So he quickly moved onto rockers and/or guitar songs: No Surrender, Cover Me, Adam Raised a Cain, Streets of Fire or I'm a Rocker. This segment would range from 1 song (in Portland) to two songs. The exception in this was in Oakland where he tagged on Something in the Night, which is a more downbeat song from the Darkness album. Again, performance subject to change depending on the mood and the setlist he's creating. * Hungry Heart & Crowd Surfing This early on every show, was common on the tour and by this point was locked into coming after the opening segment. In a sense, it was the climax to the opening segment: his first big hit, feel good song, going out physically into the crowd, etc. It was pure shtick, and fans who saw it a lot got bored with it. Yohe and I only went to one show, and we thought it was an entertaining spot that popped the crowd. Most of the crowd only goes to one show. * Newer Songs Theme Section It was always We Take Care of Our Own + Wrecking Ball + Death to My Hometown + My City of Ruins, in that order, pretty much after Hungry Heart. This was a "locked in" part of the set where there were no changes. He moves away from the warhorses and hits, and instead focused on the theme of looking at America. On the albums, I'm not a huge fan of these songs. Together in a show performed as he did, they work pretty well. People who'd been to a lot of shows got tired of the My City of Ruins performance, but seeing just one show, it's quite well done as the climax to the segment. The one exception of going straight from Hungry Heart to this segment was the finale where it looked like he called an audible, which from reports was among the highlights of the show. A great trio of songs that he performs the hell out of when I've seen them over the years. * Fan Selections Prior to this section and the prior one, he typically would toss in some songs, often playful ones. The E Street Shuffle and/or Spirit in the Night fit the bill on three shows. This Fan Selections section has been locked into concerts for a couple of tours: fans make signs of a song they want, Bruce looks around for ones he likes, and they do it. Some of them are solo songs, and others are full band songs. This is almost always where you get songs that aren't in the rotation of other "open" non-fixed slots on the tour. We got the obscure Long Time Coming, very well done solo. We then got the full band, wicked version of Reason to Believe which had been done semi-regularly on a prior recent tour, but not so much here. On the other hand, he had out of nowhere opened a show with it a couple of months back... so there are times he just pulls stuff out of the hat. 8 different songs on the four shows, so this section is one of the reasons that you get variety on his show: 20% of the 43 non-locked in songs game here. * Down Beat + Rockers Between the Fan Selection section and the next locked in section, he typically went with some down beat song or two followed by a rocker or two. The rockers here were Darlington County and She's the One, to a lesser degree the semi-moody Because the Night and the rockerish but clearly downbeat Johnny 99. He had mix of downbeat songs, and even a warhorse that is semi-downbeat and semi-rocker ("Darkness on the Edge of Town"). There were 13 songs played in this section, with 10 *different* songs being performed. There's structure, but flexibility on how to fill it. * Shackled and Drawn + Waitin' on a Sunny Day Locked in spot. * Pre-Main Set Closing Less variety here: 8 songs played, 5 different ones. I suspect that if I looked more closely at some additional playlists from this section of the tour, I would find the The Rising was semi-locked in and just replaced with The Ghost of Tom Joad because Morello was in town, was made such a big guest on the show, and Joad is a well known as a song that he and Bruce have re-envisioned to include Morello's sonic playing. * Main Set Closing Badlands and Thunder Road, always. He did the full band version of Thunder Road. * Encores Typical structure was Special Song + Born to Run + Dancing in the Dark + Frolicking Song + Tenth Avenue Freeze-out. Incident is well known by longtime fans among his older non-warhorse songs, so dusting it off popped the hardcores. We got Jungleland, which while a warhorse is also a Clemons song to make it a bit special here... I love the fuck out of it. If I Should Fall Behind was a small song that became a key encore song on the Reunion Tour, so pretty well known by fans when it's dusted off now in the encores. Kitty's Back is another old song from the second album. Four different songs on four shows, pretty cool to see the mix. The frolicking song in this part of the tour was Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, which he's been doing in the Fall/Winter for decades now. If you go back prior to that on the tour, you'll find a songs like Glory Days or Ramrod or Detroit Medley or Light of Day or Rosilita in the mid-late encore slot around Dancing in the Dark and 10th Ave. In fact, Rosie came out on the first of these for shows between Born To Run and Dancing In the Dark. So... There's a lot of different "spots", but there's a lot of similar structure, and some of it flat out locked in. There were parts of the tour where you'd get either Because the Night or Prove It All Night (with the 1978 intro) in the "Nils gets his monster solo" slot. The one set list I saw where they both were on, Stevie got the solo on one song while Nils got it on the other. Bruce had some key locked in things that he wanted to get in, usually in the same spot. But even those could change. Our opener (Land of Hope and Dreams) was a Main Set Closer on at least one show a month or so back. So working a similar match night after night against the same opponent isn't exactly unusual relative to other forms of entertainment. Heck, someone playing Hamlet on stage for five months is generally doing the same damn thing every night. On the other hand, where someone like Flair might lack is this: Ghost of Tom Joad Tour (1995-97) Reunion Tour (1999-2000) Rising Tour (2002-03) Devils & Dust Tour (2005) Seeger Sessions Band Tour (2006) Magic Tour (2007-08) Working on a Dream Tour (2009) Wrecking Ball Tour (2012) Those are Bruce's tours in the past 15 years. Joad and Devils & Dust where essentially solo accoustic tours. Seeger Sessions Band was with a full, non-E Street band of players. The other 5 were E Street backed. You could argue this is the difference between working Face and Heel. That depends on the worker. Those solo acoustic tours were radically different than the E Street ones, not just musically but also in turning in the Stadiums & Arenas for Small Halls. It might not be the equiv. On the other hand, working in Much Ado About Nothing and then working in Hamlet might be the equiv of working face for a while and then going heel. (more)

Okay, let's take a look at someone who is famous over the years of turning over his set list: Bruce Springsteen. He's also noted, like Flair, for being one of the hardest working, "best" live performers in history, for longevity both in individual concerts but also in career length, still grinding out long entertaining shows for his fans after the age of 60. He's pretty much an age and career comp for Flair relative to their businesses. Here are the set lists of his last four shows of the current leg of the current tour. Portland, OR 1. Land of Hope and Dreams 2. No Surrender 3. Hungry Heart 4. We Take Care of Our Own 5. Wrecking Ball 6. Death to My Hometown 7. My City of Ruins 8. Spirit in the Night 9. Loose Ends 10. Growin' Up 11. Jack of All Trades 12. Seeds 13. Johnny 99 14. Darlington County 15. Shackled and Drawn 16. Waitin' on a Sunny Day 17. Drive All Night 18. The Rising 19. Badlands 20. Thunder Road Encore 21. If I Should Fall Behind (solo) 22. Born to Run 23. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) 24. Dancing in the Dark 25. Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town 26. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out Oakland, CA 1. Land of Hope and Dreams 2. Cover Me 3. Adam Raised a Cain 4. Something in the Night 5. Hungry Heart 6. We Take Care of Our Own 7. Wrecking Ball 8. Death to My Hometown 9. My City of Ruins 10. The E Street Shuffle 11. Pay Me My Money Down 12. The Ties That Bind 13. I'm Goin' Down 14. Devils & Dust 15. Because the Night 16. She's the One 17. Shackled and Drawn 18. Waitin' on a Sunny Day 19. Raise Your Hand 20. The Rising 21. Badlands 22. Thunder Road Encore 23. Kitty's Back 24. Born to Run 25. Dancing in the Dark 26. Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town 27. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out Anaheim, CA 1. Land of Hope and Dreams (Morello) 2. Adam Raised a Cain 3. Streets of Fire 4. Hungry Heart 5. We Take Care of Our Own 6. Wrecking Ball 7. Death to My Hometown (Morello) 8. My City of Ruins 9. Spirit in the Night 10. The E Street Shuffle 11. Long Time Coming (solo) 12. Reason to Believe 13. This Depression (Morello) 14. Darkness on the Edge of Town 15. Bad Luck (w/ Mike Ness) 16. Because the Night 17. Darlington County 18. Shackled and Drawn 19. Waitin' on a Sunny Day 20. Raise Your Hand 21. The Ghost of Tom Joad (Morello) 22. Badlands (Morello) 23. Thunder Road Encore 24. Jungleland 25. Born to Run 26. Dancing in the Dark 27. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town 28. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out (Morello) Glendale, AZ 1. Surprise, Surprise (solo) 2. No Surrender 3. I'm a Rocker 4. Hungry Heart 5. Prove It All Night ('78 intro) 6. Trapped 7. Lost in the Flood 8. We Take Care of Our Own 9. Wrecking Ball 10. Death to My Hometown 11. My City of Ruins 12. Be True 13. Light of Day 14. Darlington County 15. Shackled and Drawn 16. Waitin' on a Sunny Day 17. Apollo Medley (w/ Sam Moore) 18. The Rising 19. Badlands 20. Thunder Road Encore 21. Incident on 57th Street (solo piano) 22. Born to Run 23. Dancing in the Dark 24. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (w/ G. Jeffreys) 25. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out (w/ Jared Clemons) Okay... that's a Song List Dump Of Doom, but bringing a little order to it...

This obviously is the type of stuff that comes up in all the Flair threads. I thought it worthwhile to think outside of the box, look at other forms of entertainment and see if it's not common elsewhere. Well of course it is. Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books all follow similar structures, have loads of similar shtick, have regular characters who nearly always are "in character" rather than evolving or changing massively. This isn't uncommon for the genre of detective / PI books. Even ones that "evolve" over time like the 87th Precinct live in stories that typically have the same general structure. They get tossed into different adventures, some times they're thrown into peril, some characters get killer off. But you're not going to find two 87th Precinct that are as different as Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet are in the Bard's catalog. Of course even the Bard has structure and shtick that is common across plays... lots of it. Television? Castle, Mythbusters, Top Chef, No Reservations... these all have/had shtick and structure. Every show might not be the same, and in fact Top Chef tends to have different shtick that gets employed across a season. But there you go: every season you *are* going to get Restaurant Wars, and usually it will go down with the same type of results. Long running shows like Cheers might have characters come and go as actors leave, or small bit players are liked and turned into regulars. The characters might evolve slightly, but the format is pretty similar across a decade. Rock stars? Go back and look at set lists of Led Zep or the Beatles for a tour, or even someone like U2 more recently. They have their Ric Flair getting tossed off the top rope every night. Page might go 20+ minutes on Dazed & Confused one night and only 12 the next, but you generally know what you're going to get on the song: the bow is coming out, you get the non-bow solo afterwards, they time change back into the central riff... and on and on every night. This really isn't uncommon. (more)

That Brody-Bock is such a bad match that it's not even funny. It's even funnier due to the Corny-Dave commentary track. John

If this is the correct date, this hasn't aired anywhere before. I'm thinking it might be the Survivor Series Showdown match though. It would be strange for them to be off on both the date and the city. I've seen them be off on dates on the Web, but the arenas are correct. John

Per Graham: WWF @ New Haven, CT - Coliseum - November 13, 1991 Ric Flair (w/ Mr. Perfect) defeated WWF IC Champion Bret Hart via count-out at 19:18 when Perfect pulled the champion off the ring apron behind the referee's back as Bret attempted to get back into the ring (Invasion 92) It was a Superstars taping where we got all sorts of these "other matches" tapes for CHV or Primetime or other places to toss.

"D'oh!" John

2-out of-3 Falls Match for the British Commonwealth Jr. Heavyweight Championship Bret Hart vs. Dynamite Kid Stampede Wrestling • December 1978 Bret Hart vs. Buzz Sawyer Georgia Championship Wrestling • September 1979 North American Heavyweight Championship Match Bret Hart vs. Leo Burke Stampede Wrestling • January 1983 Bret Hart vs. Dynamite Kid Capital Centre • September 14, 1985 WWE Tag Team Championship Match Hart Foundation vs. The Islanders Philadelphia Spectrum • March 14, 1987 Bret Hart vs. Andre the Giant Milan, Italy • April 10, 1989 Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect Maple Leaf Gardens • April 23, 1989 Hart Foundation vs. The Twin Towers Duluth, Minnesota • May 17, 1989 Bret Hart vs. Tiger Mask II WWE / New Japan / All Japan Wrestling Summit • April 13, 1990 Intercontinental Championship Match Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair New Haven, Connecticut • November 13, 1991 Bret Hart vs. Undertaker Madison Square Garden • January 31, 1992 Bret Hart vs. Bam Bam Bigelow Milan, Italy • April 25, 1993 WWE Championship Match Bret Hart vs. Diesel King of the Ring • June 19, 1994 No Holds Barred Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart RAW • March 27, 1995 Bret Hart vs. Jean-Pierre Lafitte In Your House • September 24, 1995 Bret Hart vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin Sun City Superbowl • September 14, 1996 WWE Championship Match Bret Hart vs. The Patriot In Your House: Ground Zero • September 7, 1997 WCW United States Championship Match Bret Hart vs. Booker T WCW Monday Nitro • January 25, 1999 Semi-Finals Match for the WCW Championship Bret Hart vs. Sting WCW Mayhem • November 21, 1999 Blu-Ray WWE Championship Match Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna White Plains, New York • November 29, 1993 Bret Hart & British Bulldog vs. Owen Hart & Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart Albany, New York • October 19, 1994 Bret Hart vs. Hakushi RAW • July 24, 1995 WWE Championship Match Bret Hart vs. Vader Friday Night’s Main Event • August 29, 1997

The problem I have with a Listomania of "Guys who are better/worse than Brody" is that it doesn't get to the issue of *why* Brody was great/sucked, let alone the positives/issues with all the other guys who are clustered with him. Saying that Taker > Brody doesn't really get to why one thinks Brody is flawed, and I'm not sold that it convinces anyone to look at Brody differently. I *know* that people have pointed out why they think Brody isn't good / sucks / is overrated in the thread. It's just that if it devolves into List-Time, the discussion gets further away from the reasons people think he's not all that. John

I think people are missing the obvious: Kawada vs Taue before The Handshake Now those two fuckers hated each other in the ring. Contempt and feeling ill treated turning into hate. John

It's kind of funny. Also funny that it's a gamer rather than one of the Established Wrestling Writers who got the gig.

Points I've made over the years about the Stone Cold Superstar delusions. John

For fuck's sake... we were 7 pages into a thread that was already breaking down into joking. Hence more joking. What more would you like us to do? In the 5th post in the thread, I linked to another post that spent 3700 words walking through a match in detail that reflected Brody being a dogshit worker opposite a rather famous and well thought of babyface team. Perhaps the Brody Fans could take the time to walk through, say, Brody vs Bockwinkel and spend 3700 detailed words on why it's motherfucking great~! Oh... wait... this is your first post in the thread? Joining it once it's broken down into jokes rather than back when it was actually a discussion? Right... that kind of... "... blows the whole argument up by making the people involved look not very bright." John

All time classic angle. John

The company certainly has for most of the past decade. John

Hokuto vs Kandori

What we need is Product That More People Give A Shit About. Everyone wants to look for excuses rather than where they lie: the Product and the People who Create the Product. John

Disagree. We've talked about that here before, and fairly recently. TV for the WWE is by itself a massive revenue stream. Not just from the large rights fees, but also in driving house show attendance for Raw and SmackDown (which are higher than average non-TV house shows), and also merch (live at Raw and SmackDown), etc. The WWE generates more revenue from TV than from PPV now. The notion of going back to more squashes on Raw and SD is problematic because it's not a lock to hold up the ratings, which in turn drive the rights fees. John

Sorry... forgot about him... 783. Masked Superstar 784. Ax 785. Brody 786. Smash 787. Krusher Khruschev 788. Repo Man John

... and what Will said. John

784. Ax 785. Brody 786. Smash John

I'll be damned... I go off in another Beatles riff there. That said... I do like that Pepper analogy a lot. And of course I should have remembered that Jumbo is The Beatles of wrestling, not Flair. John, who couldn't even remember one of the rare good posts I've made in the last three years...

TNT was of course a different beast, but if it was on the air for 2 years it barely got there. It wasn't one of Vince's flagship shows like Superstars, SNME, Challenge or Primetime. It was more of a vanity show, which Vince got out of his system. John