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jdw

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  1. jdw
    Well, Dave has had to reinvent his argument on "Jumbo Is Lazy" at least four times as each version was shown to be wrong. It's pretty much a goofy comment at this point. On Bret... I think a number of us saw some bad Bret nights. The one that sticks out in my mind as this card: WWF @ Los Angeles, CA - Sports Arena - October 26, 1991 (13,800; 12,400 paid) Jim Neidhart pinned Hercules IRS pinned the Big Bossman after hitting him with the steel briefcase Davey Boy Smith defeated Col. Mustafa The Mountie defeated WWF IC Champion Bret Hart via count-out The Berzerker defeated Greg Valentine WWF Tag Team Champions the Legion of Doom defeated the Natural Disasters via disqualification when Jimmy Hart interfered WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan defeated Ric Flair via reverse decision at 13:28 Where pretty much the entire cards was dogshit except for the main event. The Mountie-Bret match stood out as extra bad, probably because it was one of the few things on the undercard that we had some hope for. I wouldn't be surprised if Dave's review of the Oakland card the night before indicates it was a dog as well. Murdoch... I haven't seen the lazy matches. Ones that I don't think are good, but not lazy ones. John
  2. jdw
    I think you misread what I wrote: Muraco was a Lazy Motherfucker. Murdoch wasn't. Not entirely sure how much more clear I could have made the point. Muraco's laziness is open for everyone to see. Dick has some matches that were flat and don't grab me, but it wasn't because he was putting in a lazy performance like Muraco did *almost all the time*. What I was trying to get at was a contrast: people who claim that Dick was lazy are wrong because they can use Muraco as a peer example of what true laziness looks like. That said, I have seen Dick matches that I thought were shit. The Briscos vs Adonis & Murdoch match in MSG was, to me, shit. It wasn't because anyone was lazy in the match generally speaking. It was because their work was bad. * * * * * As far as a Good Muraco Match, I like: * the front end of his Rocky feud (either the first MSG or Cap Center match) * the very front end of his Snuka feud (i.e. angle and first matches at MSG and the Cap Center) * Backlund-Muraco On Backlund... I like the 9/81 MSG match and 10/81 Phily matches more than you do, and think the first is terrific while the second is a very solid 60 minute match with an interesting variety of body work. I like the 11/81 Philly match a good deal, and the Nitro-style 11/81 match at the Cap Center. Each has a spot that's a bit botced, but have a lot of cool things. I like the 2/83 MSG match a heck of a lot, which I was an idiot for not having watched before you did your Backlund set. I'd rate all five of those as good-or-better. In turn, the 3/83 MSG match is quite poor. I'll grant that stuff like the 9/81 match generate polarizing views. Some think it's an excellent old school match. Some think it's boring as fuck. I could point to the crowd being into the match as a sign that it wasn't boring, but I'm sure that someone could point the crowd of the 60ish minute Brody-Flair match as being into it while I find it boring as hell. Different people find different things boring. John
  3. jdw

    Terry Funk

    jdw replied to Loss's topic in The Microscope

    They had a real good match with one another. 11/25/85 Terry Funk vs. Mr. Wrestling 2 (MSG)
  4. jdw
    Good Murdoch is a really well rounded worker: knows his holds, can work the crowd, can sell and bump his ass off, has shit he can do from the top, can brawl, great facials, can stooge & comedy, and can fit a lot of it into a match. So-So Murdoch is just there: will comedy or stooge his way through a match, or kill time. It's not horrible, but it's nothing special. Rather than contrast Murdoch with Flair, I'd contrast him with Muraco. Don has a lot of the same all around skills as Dick, and will sprinkle a few of them in ever match where you *know* that he is a really talented all around worker. The problem is... Don is a Lazy Mother Fucker. He seems actively intent to get away with doing as little as possible to have a match. His good stuff is usually when someone forces it out of him... something that even a terrific and hard working guy as Steamboat has a hard time doing even *once* to have a great match. Dick may have some matches that are flat and don't really grab you, but he doesn't come across as having the Lazy Streak that Don does. In turn, when Dick has a really good match, it doesn't usually feel like he's being forced to do more tonight. If you've seen enough WWF Don and all those lazy shitty matches, you do get the sense that it's his opponent that's forces the handful of good ones to actually be good. I like the two matches with Jumbo a good deal. I don't care for the Briscos vs Adonis & Murdoch match in MSG at all... but the handheld Dylan mentioned sounds interesting. I'm not a fan of the WWF match with Barry: I love Barry, like Dick when he's on, and I just wanted a hell of a lot more out of that match. John
  5. jdw
    I think the majority of people visiting the site are Wrestling Fans more than MMA Fans, so you'd kind of expect that. John
  6. jdw
    Focusing on the "favorite", I got tired of Kawada's Chop + Hold Other Arm + Guy Falls Down + Drag Him Up + Chop Again + Wash + Rinse + Repeat. It was kind of funny when he'd do it to someone the size of Kikuchi, but it got old fast. John
  7. jdw

    Terry Funk

    jdw replied to Loss's topic in The Microscope

    Harley is pretty mediocre at mat stuff. A lot of it is killing time. I like the 30:00 draw between Baba and Harley in the 1975 Open League, but Harley's mat stuff is really repetative in the match just as it is in his 60:00 draw against Lawler. Terry is very good working holds. I'm not going to put him up there with The Destroyer or Robinson, but he's good. He knows how to work pretty much all of them, has variety to his work on a limb, and does it with flair rather than just killing time with it. I think DiBiase is closer to Dory on how he worked holds in the 70s (and in straight matches when he was a face), while Terry was better than both. John
  8. jdw

    Terry Funk

    jdw replied to Loss's topic in The Microscope

    12/15/78 Funks vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta Been a while since I've seen it, but my recollection is that it's the "story match" of the various Funk vs Baba & Jumbo matches working an injury. Excellent match. From the year before, there are these two: 12/06/77 Funks vs Billy Robinson & Horst Hoffmann 12/14/77 Funks vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta They're both 45:00 draws (one fall format) if I recall correctly, which means you have a lot of time to watch everyone work in them. They are very good. You don't really have Crazy Terry in either of them, but he does bring the "personality" for his team: he's the one who gets pissed off at Robinson, who in turn gets pissed off at him. My thought is that if you watch those matches, which is a total of 135 minutes, you're going to see a ton of non-Crazy Terry with his colorful stuff nothing different that what you'd see when other workers get pissed off at each other or bump their asses off or sell the hell out of something... except that Terry just happens to be *really* good at that. You also have the perfect contrast for him in those matches: Dory Who works straight as can be... and those 135 minutes are about as good of an example as exists on why some people think he's a bit on the boring side, not just for personality but also in how he works some stuff (i.e. he's not as interesting as the other three when it comes to even working holds). We use to joke about Dory in those matches using the plane and sandpaper to smooth down an edge on the piece of furniture he was working on, but in reality Norm Abram from The New Yankee Workshop was/is wildly more entertaining that Dory working a hold. Terry... damn if he isn't interesting working holds. You really wish there were singles matches on tape with him against guys like Backlund, Billy and The Destroyer that were "straight" for 90% of the way while working a slow burn before Terry "snaps" down the stretch. That's probably one of the points Dylan will (or has) made: Terry could work his ass off in "straight" elements, and also could bring personality to it, could work slow burns, and then of course work like a nutter. Fab worker. John
  9. jdw
    Something still seems a bit off: 3.8/4.5= 84.4% 507000/550000 = 92.2% I don't think an expansion of the number of households with PPV from April to August in 1990 would led to that wide of a variance. John
  10. jdw
    They were probably forced into going longer than say if they had this match elsewhere in 1990. It was a special no-Gaijin card (setting aside Slinger who may have been going through the dojo at the time) between series, one of those fan appreciation cards: Motoshi Okuma vs Mitsuo Momota Rusher Kimura vs Haruka Eigen Giant Baba & Richard Slinger vs Isamu Teranishi & Mighty Inoue Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi Jumbo Tsuruta & Masanobu Fuchi & The Great Kabuki vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Akira Taue & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi Comedyish undercard, just two competative matches. Suspect that pretty much everything on the card was longer than the same folks would do at a normal house show. Of course by 1994, asking Kawada and Kobashi to fill 24 minutes against each other would have been fairly easy. In 1995, it would have been a "sprint" for the two. So this is probably a very good contrast to what they did in the future, and also the match they has in 1989. It's a bit too bad that none of their 1988 matches have washed up.
  11. jdw
    What did the WON's say at the time? He also would have talked about it in the 1990 Yearbook. John
  12. jdw
    There must be a typo somewhere. From ProWrestlingHistory.com, which would have gotten them from the WON: WrestleMania VI April 1, 1990 in Toronto, ON Skydome drawing 67,287 ($3,490,857) Shown live on CCTV drawing 53,000 ($600,000) Shown live on PPV (4.5) SummerSlam 1990 August 27, 1990 in Philadelphia, PA The Spectrum drawing 19,304 ($338,452) Shown live on PPV (3.8) Also likely that there were more "buys" for Mania, as it's possible some areas didn't carry Slam that did carry Mania. John
  13. jdw
    Will: ponder the Demolition and Kane fans tossing around Epic and Great. Of course they mean EPIC and GREAT~! John
  14. jdw
    Right... and I'm speaking as one describes something as EPIC a few less times a decade. John
  15. jdw
    Obviously the idiots on WWE.com have been reading too much Grantland and thought they had a brought idea to rip it off, and do it poorly. A contrast to how these are better done: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/761231...y-malice-palace FWIW, I did enjoy WWE.com also ripping off the old Bob.com tactic of breaking a *small* article across a slew of pages. John
  16. jdw
    I'm a fan of Backlund's shtick, more than most. I like Slaughter's shtick. I don't think their 5/83 match in MSG is a "great" match. It's good, heated as hell, and I'd recommend it to Backlund Fans, Slaughter Fans, and especially people who think Backlund never had any heat after Superstar broke the belt. But I wouldn't call it a great match. It's a semantics thing, which is what I think NintendoLogic is saying. Some are free with the word, and others don't. It's been a while since I've read a batch of Phil's reviews, but his "EPIC" seemed to be the equiv of great for most folks, and his great the equiv of good. It's not a Phil thing. I suspect a lot of us looked at one of those Alan4Life lists of his Best Matches of the Year and see 30+ ****1/2+ matches and think, "That's a bit free with the snowflakes." Semantics. John
  17. jdw
    I got bored at times after two straight years of it. There often was a predictable nature of who would get pinned, in the sense of knowing it's just not going to end with this guy in trouble: "We're in deep into the run to the finish, Misawa just tagged in Kikuchi to face a hurt Jumbo which means Kikuchi this will get turned around in a minute or two and Jumbo will pin Kikuchi... hey now, everyone is outside the ring except for Jumbo and Kikuchi... backdrop... that's it." Lots of pro wrestling is predictable, and you kind of go with it. The six-mans and other non-big tags month after month did. There were times when they changed things up in 1992, or there was an extra passion to it, or they surprised you. There were around 20 non-big six-mans and tags between the two sides, and I just can't say that all of them were fresh or compelling. That's from someone who loves the match up, and pretty much anytime I put in one of those matches gets a smile on my face. But I can't sell it as a series where, if you watch every available match in the rivalry between the two side, you're going to find everything awesome, or even solid, and not get a little bored at times. John
  18. jdw
    I think Kimura and Iwamoto are central to the story: they get the living shit kicked out of them at times, which not only contrasts with Aja as a Monster and Bull as a Super Monster Ace... but also seems to in turn inflame Bull and Aja to dish out payback punishment: "Oh... you're beating up Grizzly like that? Fine, we're going to brutalize Bison." "Wait a fucking minute... we're going to kill Grizzly!" It's not like the two monster don't try to beat the crap out of each other, but the punishment dealt out to Kimura and Iwamoto gets epic at times, and would be cringeworthy if you showed it to anyone not use to joshi performers beating each other up. John
  19. jdw
    I could have sworn that earlier in the thread it seemed like the "official unofficial plan" was Punk-Rock at the Rumble, and Rock-Cena at Mania. Has there been any change for that? John
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  22. jdw
    I often use to toss the "roll out of bed" comment at these: they could roll out of bed and have a match like this that would be legendary if it happened on US TV, but for these guys it was par for the course. Some were better, some were a shade below, but a lot of them were really good. If there's a major problem with them is that we say variations of this same six man tag team TV main event a lot of times over the course of 5/90 - 10/92. The way the Yearbooks have come out kind of masks that: folks weren't "bored" of the match up watching the 1992 Yearbook because it was the first exposure to the feud in the Yearbook setting. Then the 1990 stuff is fresh because it essentially is Origin Story material to our super heroes. I wonder how people will respond to the 1991 stuff. In terms of quality and variety, it might be the best year of it since Jumbo is back on top as The Champ, we get the Kawada-Taue feud really hated up, we get Kawada challenging Jumbo in a big match, Ogawa gets added more often to the mix as another foil for Kikuchi, Kobashi increasingly comes into his own, and we get a slightly different "high point" to the Jumbo-Misawa dynamic than in a singles. But it's going to be the "third year" folks in the Yearbooks will see. I really look forward to people's comments. John
  23. jdw
    Don't get the facts in the way of a good story I guess. I'm not an expert at all on WWF 1980, but, man, hearing that Backkund couldn't draw a dime and nobody cared about Bob... Hum, what ? Zbyszko is a great storyteller though. Off the charts fantasy work by Larry. On the other hand, he's probably been telling these lies for so long that he actually believes them and doesn't remember reality. John
  24. jdw
    It's hard to know everything that they would have done. By 1992, the Jumbo & Co. vs Misawa & Co. rivalry was getting a little long of tooth over the "sameness". Baba typically didn't make changes unless forced to: 1987: Choshu leaves = Tenryu going opposite Jumbo 1990: Tenryu leaves = Misawa being moved up as Jumbo's rival 1993: Jumbo getting sick = Kawada going opposite Misawa Let's say Jumbo didn't get sick at all in 1992 and continued to perform at say 98% of what he did in 1991 (a modest decline getting a year older). What had we seen in 1992 that perhaps warranted some attention: * Misawa wins TC for the first time Well... lot's of non-Aces would win the TC for the first time. They either win it from the Ace (Tenryu beat Jumbo, Taue beat Misawa), or others (Misawa beat Hansen, Kawada beat Williams, Kobashi beat Taue). The belt *always* went back to the Ace the first time the Ace challenged for it. The newbies held it for a very small number of defenses before losing it. Misawa was losing it, and Jumbo was getting it back... likely for another run of some length like his 1/91 - 1/92 run. * Kawada had a number of TC challenges 10/91 vs Jumbo, 6/92 vs Hansen, 10/92 vs Misawa. While not winning the TC, or remotely close to winning it by 10/92, he clearly had emerged as one of the consistent and top challengers for the TC. Two of those were at Budokan, the second getting to main event the 20th Anniversary Show... big slot. That's getting a bit big in the britches to remain Misawa's partner and not lead his own group. * Kobashi challenged for his first Big Boy Title 6/92 teaming with Misawa to go after Jumbo & Taue's World Tag Titles. He was at to the point where he was ready to be someone's #2 on a top tag team. Baba would likely at the end of 1992 and into 1993 been reaching the point where he would have needed to split Kawada off from Misawa and move Kobashi up to Misawa's #2. I think we can bounce concepts off the wall and find some interesting "these are the likely options" that would have made 1993 into 1994 very interesting. As interesting as 1993 and 1994 turned out to be with Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue? Perhaps not. But that storyline was itself increasing played out by 1995 with the exception of some great Big Matches (and even one of them was played out from 12/95). John
  25. jdw
    I hit it in here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=13548 Suspect I can use Mr. Searchy and find others. I've mentioned it quite a few times over the years. John
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