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When he had to watch 5 hours of Nitro and Thunder, along with 4 hours of Raw and SmackDown, he did complain when they sucked. John

It will take a little while for this divorce to get settled. Hard to tell if Ric will be able to get married again in 2013, or if he'll have to wait until 2014. I'm also not buying that Ric is making $1M a year. John

Which is why I mentioned Rusher: to a generation of fans, he was one of those old guys in the comedy match. Fans with some perspective knew that Rusher once anchored his own promotion for close to a decade, and then drew as a main eventer opposite Inoki. John

He actually started in 1979 as an undercard worker, curtain jerking in his 6/79 debut at MSG. Mid-card two shows later against Iron Sheik (who wrestled for the Title against Bob on the show Tito debuted on). Teamed with Andre on the next show against the tag champs on the next card, then won the tag titles on the card after that on the next card. The tag titles weren't a massive thing at the time, but it was a quick push. Dropped the tag titles early in the following year to the Samoans, who got the monster push to anchor the belts for a while. In a sense Tito was part of a transition champ team. Left quickly after that, losing twice to Hogan at MSG. Farted around a bit in the undercards and midcards upon his return in late 1983, then in early 1984 zoomed up to get the IC Title from Muraco. Essentially the promotion went with a double babyface pairing with the singles titles: Hogan and Tito. That would be the case in 1984-85 except when Tito was chasing Greg. I would call him in that stretch (and on into 1986) a non-Hogan show main eventer, and on shows with Hogan he would tend to be semi-final level as far as pushed matches. Might have another match as pushed or more pushed, but on average in those roles. John

I'd also add: The early buyrate numbers are largely useless. Those 1990-91 ones look really great, but they aren't comparable to 1993 on. Hogan-Flair in August 1994 set a record for buys for the company. The "buyrate" doesn't look great compared to 1990... but far more people bought the show. It simply was available in more homes. John

It did & didn't. 0.6 - 0.7 was about the average for a Hogan "B" show which is what WCW was doing at the start of the year then things droped big time, down to 0.4 range for the 2 PPVs before the NWO came along which were headlined by the Giant vs Sting & then vs Luger (Giant also bombed vs Hogan at the 1st Souled Out PPV). So the NWO did bump things back up but just back to whear they used to be a few months before. Also should be noted that the Hog/Road wild PPVs never drew big except for the year Leno came in. The first big buy rates for WCW during the NWO days didn't come until late 96 & early 97 with the Hogan/Piper feud. This. One really needs to compare buys from a year-to-year basis as much as a show-to-show basis in this era: * Hogan didn't work every PPV * Hogan typically drew bigger buys than anyone else in WCW starting in 1994 * there were Big Shows and there were Smaller Shows * this was a period of massive expansion of the PPV schedule (WWF added the IYH and WCW added more shows) Viewers were selective in what they orders. The WWF had this: 11/95 Bret vs Nash drew more than 12/95 Bret vs Davey. That shouldn't *entirely* be read as Bret and/or Davey not being over. A big part of it was that 11/95 was Survivors, 12/95 was an IYH with the Rumble around the corner for 1/96. It's one of the reasons why the 2/96 show's buy was impressive: it was an IYH that did a good number for Bret-Nash in the cage, a sign *that* feud (actually Bret-Nash-Taker) was doing a strong uptick in business from 1995 for the WWF. Hall & Nash didn't spike up business massively. Their buys weren't bad, nor were their ratings... but they weren't a massive uptick. Hogan was the uptick, especially in terms of buys starting with Hogan-Savage and Hogan-Piper. Which I think I mentioned earlier in the thread: those set records for WCW. John

I find the term to be rather useless to define a wrestlers *entire* career unless he was in the mid-cards his entire career. Take Tito, for example. From 1984-88 he main evented hundreds of times. In fact, suspect he main evented a hundred times a year in 1984, 1985 and 1986 before having another run in Strike Force in late 1987 through Mania the next year. If he was on the card with Hogan, of course Hogan was the main event. But Tito matches for the IC Title main events all around the circuit, in major arenas without Hogan to anchor it. There were times when you have the IC and the Tag Title on the same card, but I think it would be a stretch to say Bulldogs vs Dream Team / Hart Foundation was more of the main event than Tito vs Savage. Does that make him a Main Event wrestler like Hogan or Flair? No. But it also drags him above defining him as a career mid carder. That's a national promotion during the course of its expansion that he often main evented. Rusher Kimura spent a decade and a half as a mid-carder in All Japan and Noah. Even before that, he spent much of the 80s as a mid-carder after IWE closed shop. But it would be wildly inaccurate to define his career as a "midcarder". It's far more useful to give a fuller explanation of a wrestler. John

Yep. I'm glad this is on there because it's two important wrestlers, and important because it's interpromotional and for a title. There are times where the yearbooks need to show something that it's a home run because it's important. Also... folks need to know that Hansen and Vader weren't bullet proof as workers in this period. John

He came back teaming with the Blonde Outlaws mostly, and with Vader to a lesser degree. Don't recall anything specific with Choshu prior to this on TV, but I think his return match was one of those big tags with the Outlaws opposite Choshu & Co. John

Renegade being one of the top 5 most screwed over by the booker guys in pro wrestling history is... well... pretty crackers. John

Eric's lasting impact is buried: Turning pro wrestling promotions into Television Production Companies where a significant portion of their revenue comes from Television, not simply using television to promote what once were the primary revenue sources which were originally house shows then house shows + PPV. Eric went there and made a mint for WCW and in turn Turner / Time Warner. In turn, Vince went there and made a mint. Vince's TV ad revenue and rights fees were in the range of $20M in FY1998 (May 1997 - Apr 1998). They went like this: FY1998: ~$19.9M FY1999: $39.2M FY2000: $90M FY2001: $125.4M FY2002: $136.3M Or in another way: $28.8M --> $74.1M Arena ticket sales $43.9M --> $112.0M PPV $33/6M --> $86.1M Merch $19.9M --> $136.3M TV Advertising & Rights Fees There was growth all around for the WWF in those years, but the growth in actually turning TV into a cash cow was something that no one imagined. Not even Eric. John

I tend to think that's been overplayed. They wouldn't have placed 100% of the tickets on sale at one Budokan for the next. Think of the amount of time it would take to process 16K tickets *live*. In addition, recall how the ticket business was done in Japan: a big block of tickets was "sold" to "certain ticket brokers" for a guarantee. Those ticket brokers would in turn sell them. I tend to think the tickets that "sold out" on the prior Budokan were simply those that the promotion retained to sell themselves at the venue. As far as what would likely be on a Budokan that might not yet be announced but you're buying tickets for... Here are the Budokans after the mask game off leading to the 10/92 addition: 06/08/90 Jumbo vs Misawa / TC: Hansen vs Gordy 09/01/90 Jumbo vs Misawa / TC: Hansen vs Williams 12/07/90 RWTL Final Night: Jumbo & Taue vs Misawa & Kawada / Hansen & Spivey vs Gordy & Williams 04/18/91 TC: Jumbo vs Misawa / WTT: Hansen & Spivey vs Gordy & Williams 06/01/91 WTT: Hansen & Spivey vs Jumbo & Taue / Misawa vs Gordy 09/04/91 WTT: Misawa & Kawada vs Jumbo & Taue 12/06/91 RWTL Final Night: Misawa & Kawada vs Gordy & Williams / Jumbo & Taue vs Hansen & Spivey 03/04/92 WTT: Jumbo & Taue vs Gordy & Williams / TC: Hansen vs Misawa 06/05/92 WTT: Jumbo & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi / TC: Hansen vs Kawada 08/22/92 TC: Hansen vs Misawa / Jumbo & Taue vs Gordy & Williams So if you're a Misawa Fan, it's kind of obvious that he's going to be in a big match. The *weakest* match on that list for Misawa in terms of cha-ching was the one against Gordy. It turned out to be his first singles win over Gordy, so it wasn't insignificant. The others are all major matches: TC, WTT, singles against Jumbo, RWTL Final Night matches. You get the same thing leading into the 7/93 addition: Misawa main evented 12/92, 2/93 and 6/93. You get the same thing leading into the 4/94 addition: Misawa main evented 9/93, 10/93, 12/93 and 3/94. That 4/94 Carny Final would be the first time he hadn't main evented / double main evented Budokan since 06/01/91. So if you bought a ticket before the card was announced, you pretty much knew: * Baba is going to give you a card you like * Misawa is going to have a big match John

Kawada was the right guy against Misawa. He has some positive things to point to, that were a piece of All Japan growing it's revenue. But again, I could craft those positives in a way that make Kawada look, to someone who doesn't know better, to have been more impactful that he was. Okay... so skip Kawada and go to the sacred cow I also mentioned: Tenryu We can craft the argument to make Tenryu into an awesome, mind bending draw. But it would miss the point that on his own, as the lead rather than the "opponent", his promotions SWS and WAR were failures. He got his ass utterly kicked by those undercard guys in All Japan who use to was his back and carry his bags. Now those last two sentences, which are factually correct, are also not entirely fair to Tenryu either. The reality is somewhere in the middle, or better stated "a bit of both". That is Sting. On a smaller scale, since Tenryu did it as an opponent in several promotions. Sting did it in one, and we're not entirely sure if he would have had success in the WWF. We think so... but the LOD weren't a lock draw in the WWF. You never really know. I don't think Sting was a piddling part of WCW in that era, or the nWo storyline. But more than Hogan? Of course not. Eric? No. Hall & Nash? No. Those guys get roughly 75% of the credit in my book, with Hogan and Eric combining to be over 50% while Hall & Nash take up whathever balance is left to get to 75%. Sting is in the grouping with Piper, Savage, Lex and the Steiners. At the top of that grouping? Perhaps. But what chunk of the 25% does he get? It's hard to go past 10% because it means that 15% has to not only be devided with those out 3+2, but also *everyone* one else in the company who played a role. That includes people like Tony (who I'm not a fan of but did his job in this) and Bobby who sold the motherfuck out of the angle. The entire rest of the company dividing up 15% so Sting can get 10%? That's asking a lot. Am I too high on Hogan, Eric and Hall & Nash? It's asking a lot to cut them down. It was Eric's idea, he spent the boatloads of money to make it happen, he sold the hell out of it, and then was Mr. McMahon before Mr. McMahon. He warrants credit (and frankly warrants a place in the HOF even if I don't like him). There also is no Anti-WCW group is Hall & Nash don't jump. They also made the nWo cool to the fan base... again, even if I didn't like them. It's extremely hard to sub anyone for them: there really wasn't anyone else in the WWF who could have jumped and made it work. Sure as fuck not Shawn, who would have been completely eaten up by Hogan in two months... then not show the respect by Hogan to let him continue to get push as co-lead heel of the company like Hall & Nash. And in the end, there is no nWo without Hogan. The Outsiders didn't take fully off, and if they didn't deliver a strong #3, it would have gone off the rails. Instead, Hogan took the thing off. Then he sustained it, and manipulated the shit out of it to revolve around himself in the key storylines. A self center genius, but lord did they rake in the cash. 75% seems high, but there literally is no angle without each one in turn: Eric, then Hall & Nash, then Hogan. In turn, Hogan was at the center of every major nWo draw of the entire era. Not even needing "WCW guys" to draw, instead doing it against Savage and Piper initially as he angle was taking off. So I don't think Sting was a piddling part of it. But I don't think we can give him massive credit for it either. Closer to Kobashi in the Jumbo & Co. vs Misawa & Co. feud. Kobashi was excellent in it... but he takes a back seat to Jumbo, Misawa, Kawada and Taue from a storyline standpoint and drawing standpoint in it. There's even that little Fuchi & Ogawa vs Kikuchi aspect that warrant credit for what it added, and is a lot closer to Kobashi's contributions than say what Kobashi did was close to what Kawada vs Taue added to it. Kobashi wasn't piddling, he played an important roll, brought a ton of quality, the fans loved him, but... we shouldn't get carried away on his importance to the feud. John

Let me go at it from another direction. We can find examples of Sting headlining big shows in WCW and them drawing. But we need to think deeper about them before we instantly say "Proof that Sting = Huge Draw~!" And example of this: 2046+1001+806+398+1106 In 1988-91, All Japan climaxed 4 of their 8 series with Budokan shows: Feb/Mar, May/Jun, Aug/Sep, Nov/Dec. In 1992 it was expanded to 5 of 8 series with an October Budokan. In 1993 it was expanded to 6 of 8 series with a July Budokan. In 1994 it was expanded to 7 of 8 with an April Budokan (Carny Final). This would be the number of Budokans they would run each year from 1994-99 before the split in 2000. With the exception of a 1990 interpromotion Dome show that used WWF and New Japan talent, All Japan didn't promote shows at the Dome. In 1998, All Japan booked the Dome. The would run it again in 1999 before the split in 2000. In 1992, Toshiaki Kawada was in the singles match that was the clear main event on the October card that added the 5th Budokan to the calendar. In 1993, Toshiaki Kawada was in the singles match that was the clear main event on the July card that added the 6th Budokan to the calendar. In 1994, Toshiaki Kawada was in the singles match that was the clear main event on the April card that added the 7th Budokan to the calendar. In 1998, Toshiaki Kawada was in the singles match that was the clear main event on the card that added the Tokyo Dome to the calendar. You read that correct: singles matches featuring Kawada were used to "open" all four major cards added to All Japan's calendar in the 90s. In addition, Kawada main evented two Tokyo Dome cards for New Japan in 2000 and 2001 that sold out, at a time when New Japan's Dome attendance was dropping rather fast. That's six rather major positives. I mean think about that: * Being in the singles match that adds all four major cards (i.e. PPV equivs) to your promotion's calendar in a decade, which doubled the promotion's number of annual major cards in that period. * helping a second promotion reversing its trend my selling out two major Dome shows, essentially the Wrestlemania and the Survivor Series of the Japanese wrestling calendar If you don't know a lot about All Japan, that makes Kawada sounds like Hogan, doesn't it? There's a catch: That was Misawa's first TC defense, the first Misawa-Kawada after they became regular partners, and was voted on by the fans as the match they wanted to main event the 20th Anniversary Show. It's a "positive", but only part of it was Kawada. That would also be with Misawa defending the Triple Crown. This would be the first Misawa-Kawada after Kawada left Misawa's group to become a true rival, basically the "heel" in the feud. It's a positive, but only part was Kawada. This was the Carny Final. The match that main events it never is even announced before the thing sells out: it's a tourney where the finalists aren't determined until days before the card. It sold out when the tickets were put on sale the month before. Kawada just happened to go to the Final, against Steve Williams... in a tourney where Misawa was "injured" early on. Misawa had been in the Final in 1992 and 1993, losing to Hansen and was expected to go to the finals yet again. The positive here is the Baba had enough faith in Kawada (and Doc) to book them into a singles main event at Budokan and believe that it wouldn't let the fans down who bought the tickets thinking it would be Misawa against someone. Kawada did in fact deliever... but it's not really an example of him being a draw. This happened to be again... you guessed it... Misawa defending the TC. It was as much a celebration of All Japan first as Kawada being a big draw. It's a positive, and again a sign that Baba had some faith in Kawada holding up his end of main eventing opposite Misawa on an important card. These matches were New Japan vs All Japan, with Kawada pretty much all that was left of All Japan. There's zero doubt that if Kobashi was in those matches, the place would have sold out. There's zero doubt that if Misawa was in those matches, they would have sold out even faster. It's a positive that Kawada had enough to hold up his end of a New Japan vs All Japan dream match and pop the joint. But he wasn't unique in having the ability to do that at the time. It simply was opportunity. We would be correct in calling these six cards positives in Kawada's case for the HOF. But we also would be misleading if we claimed *he* was the central draw in any one of them. It was largely circumstances and Misawa in the All Japan ones, and opportunity in the New Japan ones. It would be best to say that Kawada as an "opponent" had some strong draws to point to. That's not really a negative. In a sense, the exact some thing could be said about most of Tenryu's best drawing positives. He was the opponent in the NJPW vs WAR feud. He was the opponent for Takada in a good draw. He was the opponent for Onita in a good draw. The one clear contrast to this would be Hogan being the opponent for him (and to a lesser degree the Road Warriors while Tenryu teamed with Hogan)... but the true tickets selling of those matches is a big question mark. What we can say for sure is that was excellent as the outsider opponent Tenryu in several dream match opportunities. That's a positive. Going in the other direction, lots of guys drew opposite Hogan in the 80s in the WWF. Kamala set some records right after the Orndorff feud. Hogan or Kamala? John

Savage and Piper were over, but they were also WWF guys. Sting was the face of WCW for its entire existence. That would mean a lot to me if it weren't for the fact that the PPV's I mentioned drew a load of money. My recollection is that the Hogan-Piper set a new WCW record for buys, while that Hogan-Savage and the second Hogan-Piper were very close to it. New WCW record would happen to top all of those that Sting had main evented prior to it. New WCW record means it's money into WCW's pocket, not into Vince's and the WWF's. It's a bit like saying that Babe Ruth was a Red Sox who already had 3 rings before he went to the Yankees, and that what he did with the Yankees really did add a lot since he was originally a Sox. No... Ruth was the piece the Yankees were built on, regardless of where he came from. In turn, WCW's hot run under Eric was built on Hogan. Not on Sting. Sting was just one of various people that Hogan drew big buys with. It was the biggest buy, but Hogan had more than a dozen other strong ones that topped what WCW (and Sting) did before he joined WCW. John

Hogan joining the Outsiders was a big part of the nWo getting over. I'm not entirely sure how much Sting had to do with Hogan-Savage and Hogan-Piper drawing big buys in Oct-96, Dec-96 and Feb-97. Sting played a roll. Eric played a bigger roll. Hogan played a bigger roll. Hall & Nash (combined) played a bigger roll. In a sense, Savage and Piper played big rolls as face who couldn't crack the nWo's power. Lots of people played rolls, and it's really hard to pull a number out of the air and give Sting x% credit for the nWo. 50%? No... it's safe to say that if anyone deserves close to 50% it would be Hogan. 25%? Way too high considering we would need to give a bigger chunk than 25% to Hogan and also Eric and also Hall+Nash (combined)... which would take us over 100%. Given all the people who played rolls in helping get the nWo over, it's pretty hard to give Sting even as much as a 10% credit in it because there simply isn't that much left to spread around after you get done with just those four lead heels... then start passing around pieces to top faces (Piper, Savage, Steiners, Lex, Giant) who contributed. He played a roll. But it's a bit like the Harts vs USA feud. The overwhelming majority of credit has to go to Bret and Vince (akin to Hogan and Eric here). Then a piece for Owen & Davey because it needed to be a unit rather than just Bret (though frankly Bret going heel on his own would have been successful). Owen & Davey maybe get less of a piece than Hall & Nash, but they have a chunk. Which... doesn't leave a lot of pieces for other people. Is TNA even relevant? John

Sting moved merch for what... 2 years? 18 months? :/ WCW's merch business before the Monday Night Wars was terrible. I doubt we have full, accurate numbers for the entire 90s that can be directly compared (i.e. total number of items sold in each product category). But I suspect that if we did, Bret sold more merch than Sting did. Crow Sting's peak might be higher, but Bret sold merch in the WWF year after year for 8 years, be it those goofy foam fingers or the goofy pink sun glasses or shirts. It's also possible that if we're doing that 1990-98 frame offered up earlier, that Austin sold so much shit in 1998 along with a reasonable amount of shit in 1996-97 that it swamps what Sting sold in 1990-98. It's really tricky. I think we're cutting Sting the best possible case by calling him #3 behind Hogan and Bret. We're also gerrymandering it to hit Sting the best possible way (an odd 9 year period rather than the entire decade or even looking at individual years). We're also ignoring that there are extremely few people who were just a babyface in that period (hell, even Hogan wasn't)... which again favors Sting. It truly is one where we'd be better off not thinking too hard about it. John

The trick with Crow Sting is the lack of house shows he worked on and PPV's that he worked on as the main eventer. I agree that he was a big part of the "show". But other than the famous Starcade match, there isn't a lot of "there" there. The return match was disappointing at the time. Then Hogan pulled one of his great spots with the "I don't care about the belt because I have more important things to do" to go off and work the cage match with Savage while telling Hall to chase Sting in the lesser title match. Goldberg was also cresting towards his World Title win, and it was very clear in the Spring of 1998 that Sting's moment had passed and Goldberg was the #1 face in the promotion. Not sure that I'm moved by the emotional thing. It would be like me saying looking at the end result of their careers, it's an emotional choice to me that Kawada was the bigger star than Kobashi. From a fact based standpoint, I would say that my emotional choice there is probably bullshit. John

That's an interesting concept. I wonder if it's true. Hogan was a babyface in that period through mid-1996. Even with time off due to juice and the time off at the end when he went heel, I'm not sure Sting would stack up in terms of a draw next to Hogan. Heck, given how much time Sting spent up in the rafters *not* working and also out with the knee, it's not like Sting was main eventing 9 straight years. Okay... change "not sure" to "I doubt it" instead. Suspect in just 1990-91 that Hogan put up more big draw numbers than Sting did in the entire decade. That even if that's close, then add in the Hogan-Flair and Hogan-Vader series in WCW in 1994-95 as doing better total buys than pretty much every Sting did... other than opposite... hey, That Hogan Guy. Okay... so we have to find someone else? Bret wasn't exactly a house o' fire as a draw. But... Bret-Yoko, Bret-Lawler and Bret-Taker-Diesel did some fine numbers. I suspect the buys would lean towards Bret rather comfortably... hell, even Bret-Flair on a throwaway WCW PPV did a better than expected number. My guess is that if we broke it down, Bret would rate ahead. The two are largely peers, in opposing companies, and generally thought of as the Plan B's that the companies kept going back to when things failed. Not terribly sure if that's accurate as the WWF went back to Bret more often, and to a degree Flair was as much the Plan B in WCW as Sting was. Anyway, Sting was probably the #3 babyface in the US in that period. The other two happen to be in the HOF, and if one goes further down the list, you'll find a number of "top" babyfaces from that era below Sting that are also in. It is an argument that splits both ways. Full Disclosure: I never have voted for Sting, and he's well down the list of guys that I would consider voting for.

Ric before he was totally crackpot: 1985 Promos Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaH29nFRDCU 1985 Promos Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G72RZITptG8 They each are 55+ minutes.

The link at the top is annoying, but this is a classic collection of mostly Hyper Ric going crackpot.

This is all ground that's been covered before. 35 was there because AJW workers retired at 25 and thus had been retired for 10 years. With the exception of Dave, everyone now agrees the age should be pushed up to at least 45 and the "years as a worker" probably should be completely tossed overboard. It frankly should have been put in place the second he was confronted with Angle being eligible for the ballot: clearly it was too early for him given how long he'd been worker, and a new requirement needed to be come up with. This is old, old, old stuff. :/

I suspect that I could. John