jdw

Loss or Will: Might want to split all this good stuff into a "Davey Richards Is A Douchebag" thread, since he's gone from ROH. Given he probably won't hold his paramedic job for long and will be back working the indy circuit, we'll probably need a thread to chart his decent. John

I think that was covered in that thread.

I suspect it's just a general decision AJW made: they didn't want to be as locked into partners always partnering, so they bounced it around. They seemed to get far more into that mode in the 90s than in the 80s where teams like the Crush Girls and JBA teams together a ton. The 90s tag leagues come across as AJW wanting to give the fans "something different" rather than a rehash of a bunch of matches they'd seen earlier in the year.

Again, on your list of regular pairings, it just means that everyone was tossed together with everyone. You've got Kyoko instantly becoming Aja's "regular" partner based on a limited past and a limited future. It's a bit like saying Baba & Kobashi were a regular team heading into the 1992 Tag League because they'd teamed together a few times (including Baba's last title match).

91 - Kyoko/Yamada is random, Tak/Yoshida were reg tag parters at the time 92 - Kyoko/Aja were established by this time, Tak/Terri is random but their team only happened because Yoshida was injured 93 - Kyoko/Yamada were established by this point due to 91, Tak & Hotta were a reg team It's a stretch to say that Kyoko & Yamada are "established" at a time when Yamada was winning the tag titles back with Toyota. I also think it's a stretch to say that Aja & Kyoko are "established" in anything more than a random sense. Within a year, Kyoko challenged for the Tag Titles with: 06/18/91 with Bull 01/05/92 with Yamada 06/27/92 with Hokuto 07/15/92 with Aja So you have her with her mentor, getting a challenge for the title vacated by the Jungle Jacks after the Tag League with the partner she won the tag league with, then Hokuto, then Aja. What's established is that Kyoko could be tossed with anyone to challenge for the titles or pair in the tag league. They tossed everyone together like this often enough that we all can come up with "history" that any two wrestlers had together.

The 80s seemed to have the normal teams paired together more consistently: http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/.../ajw/tag80.html 90s... not so much: http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/.../ajw/tag90.html I suspect we think of AJW being as structured in teams as AJPW was, and it's just not the case. New Japan really wasn't as structured either. Here's 1991: Riki Choshu & Masa Saito - Old Team Tatsumi Fujinami & Big Van Vader - Random Masa Chono & Bam Bam Bigelow - Random Keiji Mutoh & Hiro Hase - New Shinya Hashimoto & Scott Norton - Random Wild Samoan & Great Kokina - Team Tiger Jeet Singh & Kim Duk - Old Heels Mutoh & Hase would team together a good deal going forward, but Mutoh & Chono had been the team just a year before while Hase & Sasaki were a pair until Sasaki went out hurt. 1992: Riki Choshu & Shinya Hashimoto - random Hiro Hase & Kensuke Sasaki - back together just before Sasaki goes Hell Raiser Keiji Mutoh & Bam Bam Bigelow - random Masa Chono & Tony Halme - random Scott Norton & Super Strong Machine - random Tatsumi Fujinami & Manabu Nakanishi - random Vet / Kid team Jim Niedhart & Tom Zenk -random gaijin team Yikes! They did get a little more "teammy" as the decade went on, but I don't think AJW was alone in randomness. It's AJPW that sticks out as being so insanely structured, especially in the top part of the tag teams. John

Pretty much every tag tournament they did they'd always toss in atleast a few random pairings, one of those things you don't give much thought to after a while. I think most of it was semi-random. The Double Inoues *never* teamed up in the tourney when they were both in it: 1991: Kyoko Inoue & Toshiyo Yamada* / Takako Inoue & Mariko Yoshida 1992: Kyoko Inoue & Aja Kong* / Takako Inoue & Terri Power 1993: Kyoko Inoue & Toshiyo Yamada / Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta 1994: Kyoko Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa / Takako Inoue & Manami Toyota* 1995: Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe* / Takako Inoue & Aja Kong 1996: Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita Asari / Takako Inoue & Yumi Fukawa 2003: Kyoko Inoue & Hikaru / Takako Inoue & Kayo Noumi * = winner 0 for 7. Mita & Shimoda paired at times, at other times didn't.

Suspect our Lucha fans could site the major ones in Mexico City.

These are all 1995-96 personal experiences, so the places may have changed: Korakuen Hall Great place to see wrestling. You weren't going to see a Big Match from a Big Promotion there. But you were close, surrounded by the hardest of the hardcore Tokyo fans for the promotion. Workers worked hard, even if it wasn't say Major Show 110%. Fun... that's the word for the place: fun. Budokan Saw two shows there. It's... not that amazing of a place to watch a show. Older, if you're use to more modern arenas here in the US. Obviously if you're watching a great card / match, it would be like any other arena where the entertainment carries the place. The cards I saw weren't off the charts, and no match was a MOTYC level where you could get the sense of what it was like when AJPW was rocking the joint. One regret from that period: not going to an AJPW Budokan. Glad that I did get to see some cards in it... just unlucky not to time out a trip built around an AJPW card there. Was going to to the 9/95 (which ended up Misawa-Taue and the 60:00+ elimination tag) along with the three AJW shows wrapping around it... and it was just the shits that it fell through. Yokohama Arena Much more modern in feel than Budokan. I actually enjoyed it as a place to sit and watch wrestling. Saw a good show there, and the crowd while not a sellout generated good heat for it. Again one of the disappointments: not seeing that level of show in Budokan. Yokohama Bunka Gym Eh. Probably due the show. Felt like a smaller college gym type of setting... without the college campus. Ryogoku Kokugikan Saw... I guess five shows? Thought it was a wondeful place to see wrestling, unlike anything you'd see here. Sumo boxes on the floor level are super cool looking... floor next to the ring is like anywhere... while the front row of the balcony was awesome place to watch from, one of the best I've ever been in. I'd recommend back at the time Korakuen Hall for any promotion (even the shitty ECW-ish show was entertaining for the fans), Ryogoku for a bigger show (which would be New Japan)... and don't have a good AJPW reference to judge the "best" of what Budokan could offer.

Fucking awesome! John

Google Steph and Paul... there's a lot more. This one is funny: http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/235947-rea...an-breaks-trust Christ... there were so many stories out of the WON and Torch back then that I can't even remember all of them.

Paul Heyman vs Stephanie Mcmahon That's from Hardcore History, which was Scott Williams' book... which if I recall was written at the time Scott was editing for Dave. It's really hard to think that story would be in the book if Scott didn't at least get the old "I can neither confirm nor deny that happened" wink-wink nudge-nudge from Paul. Then there's this: This is going to piss people off It's Paul, so you're always going to get him doing 180s within the same answer. But he does get across they had issues, before turning around in the other direction. John

I thought the implication was that once married, Bryan was going to have AJ committed Yeah, but with no real payoff or even tease. Suspect they'll have her committed down the road. Yep.

I'm pretty sure in the past (i.e. years ago when Heyman was a WWE TV Character) when she's put down Heyman, she's invoked the "My daddy is successful while you're a failure" talking point. Whether it fit into the current storyline, it's the "history" between the two and Heyman vs WWF. I mean... if Paul was involved in scripting it at all (which he certainly was given it being all Shooty), you do think that he'd want to put over Vince since (i) it keeps the checks coming, and (ii) it's better for Paul to put over Vince than put over Steph.

They did come across as scripted and not inconsistent with the McMahon's / WWE shitting on Heyman over the years. I didn't really find them all that fascinating beyond the "Steph gets to have her egofuck moment to... christ this reminds me why I stopped watching everyone of these..." John

I was at the show. The problem was that Undertaker could not get his jacket off. I don't know if his gloves got caught on the sleeves, but he literally went to the side of the ring and had several people working to rip the thing off of him. Cool. As I said, it was very un-WWE Production to have that shitty of camera work. Setting that one aside, there were other times where the camera work wasn't really up to the standards at their peak. John

I think Sean is a bit of a split: there is a nice guy in him, a prick, and a sad junky. I think so many people have seen the nice guy side of him that it's hard to accept the other parts when they pop up. John

Jun-Jul 9-10: 4.625M viewers 10-11: 4.785 viewers Last night: 8-9: 5.439M 9-10: 6.318M 10-11: 6.300M Safe to say that the viewers will fall back next week, especially in the 1st hour (it was 3.9M / 4.9M / 5.1M splits on the three hour show back on 6/11). John

Yeah, there was something up that they kept him off mic in the Opening Segment, and didn't even let him do the bronco buster. Seemed like they were protecting themselves from him doing anything. On the other hand, the camera stayed on when Waltman made him move on Trish, so perhaps an aspect of it was in the script, but Waltman took it too far.

I forgot to mention, and think that only Bob did earlier in the thread: The Waltman-Trish thing was creepy. If scripted, it's pretty bad because it really calls for Trish to get the upper hand to "win" the spot while Waltman stooges at the end. If unscripted... really creepy. The only way I could see the first being the case and Trish not instantly getting the upper hand is if they she and Waltman are back for a short storyline where Waltman stooges in the end. Otherwise... ugh. John

Race-Hogan matches were a blast. Hogan-Funk weren't bad either, but you kind of wish they'd been given the attention by the company as Hogan-Race (and it's not like Hogan-Race was as pushed as Hogan-Savage, Hogan-Orndorff and Hogan-Kamala). John

How much time do you have on that? There were a few things that I think could have been emphasized a little, such as elements of the Gotch-Jenkins series that fit into the gambling-booked view. It's been a long time since I read Yohe's piece on those matches, which you cited in the biblio... and lord knows it's been a decade or more since Steve and I talked about the matches and hashed out our thoughts (which are pretty close). It's less of a nit than playing a bit into some of the things you wrote, and also not paragraphs of content but sentences in a couple of places. John

So no answer on this one yet? John

* Opening video package It was okay, but didn't blow me away. Perhaps given they're at 1000 episodes and closing in on 20 years there's just *too much* to try to cram into a package like this, and stuff you'd like to see given more time wasn't. There's a bit of a diminishing returns point in these things, where perhaps 10 years with this much time allotted works better. Of course I liked the first 8 years of Raw a hell of a lot more than that the last 10. * Vince McMahon thank you Nice little spot for Vince, but… you’re going to get Mr. McMahon highlights throughout the show, and this pales in comparison. * DX segement Shawn and Trip sucked. Waltman was given surprisingly nothing to do. Funny that the NAO were the best part of it. Too loooooooooooooooooong, which was an instant reminder of what turned me off of Raw so long ago: the unending egofucking Trip segements. Tonight we were going to be stuck with a second one given that Trip-Brock shit. The stuff with Sandow… eh. * Six-man thingy with JR at the announcers’ table Kind of just “there”. Not terribly compelling, solid enough in tossing out action and moving things along… but not terribly interesting. * Charlie Sheen via Skype. Who gives a fuck. A sign of the WWE being out of touch since Sheen’s usefulness was when he was melting down losing his show… not when he has a new show that is declining in the ratings. * A.J.& Layla & Crazy Wrestlers The concept was actually good: it’s hard to call AJ nuts when Pro Wrestling has been Nuts for… well… forever, and showing examples of it. There actually is a germ of a funny idea there. As a tie-in to show a few old wrestlers being crackers, that’s not a bad idea. The execution… not super well done. I don’t think it was very funny, and if given more thought probably could have been a longer piece that figure out ways to highlight some of the craziest things in Raw history. That probably would have needed a video package rather than people walking by outside, and they would have needed someone other than Layla there to carry the thing for AJ. My guess is that this would have been the best use of Foley given he’d done so many of the crazy things back in the day. Anyway, germ of an idea, failed execution. * Brodus - Swagger with Foley What a fucking waste of Foley. If they’re going to have him be Dude Love, they could have done a reoccurring bit of him being each character. Of course Trip would never let that happen. * Trish & Trip Not funny, and a sad waste of Trish. * AJ-Bryan Not funny. Weak payoff. Felt like something slapped together. A lot of time invested in something that I don’t really care about. * Bryan-Punk-Rock Setting the ball rolling for Rock-Punk at the Rumble works for me. The segment… I guess okay, probably effective. Not really massively memorable. * Miz- Christian You could smell Title Change, which I was happy for since I didn’t want to see Cena win the title in the main. Match? Eh. * Trip-Heyman-Steph-Brock Let’s see here… I hate Trip… I’ve hated Steph’s character since the Triangle Angle wasn’t pulled off correctly… I am on the short list of people who thinks Heyman isn’t all that as a character and on the mic… and Brock’s return means shit to me. Yep, this was going to be painful. Worse than could have been expected. All the “I’m Shooting Now, Brother!” shit bored the hell out of me back in the day, and it’s far worse 16 years since I Respect You Booker Man started all this nonsense. The only positive is that Trip getting to “win” the battle here with Brock means he’s going to get his ass kicked at Summer Slam. Right? Right? * Lita-Slater Worked for what it was. They got in and our fairly quickly. * Mooney-Bryan I guess folks who give a shit should be happy by just how much time Bryan was given on the 1000th Raw… it’s a good sign of his push in the company. On the other hand, I don’t give a shit. * Cena-Ryder-Okerlund-Rock The GTV reference was flat. Cena-Rock was perfectly okay, though not great. * Kane-Jobbers-Undertaker This was one of the strangest things from a timing and production standpoint that I’ve ever seen from the pros at the WWE. They had that looooooooooooong shot of the Jobbers outside the ring after Taker came out, where you kind of wanted a shot to see if Taker and Kane were going to shake hands before the jobbers jumped into the ring for the inevitable beat down. Instead, time kind of stood still there. I don’t know if the jobbers were screwing up on their que to jump back in, or if Kane & Taker need the camera off them to cover / set up something… hard to tell, but it was strange. Then after the beat down, it took forever to get a pose, the interaction between Kane and Taker wasn’t great (for a feel good 1000th show)… it was just all fucking strange. It was hardly the only time in the night where WWE Production was far off their game from their late 90s / early 00s peak. * Cena-Punk The work was a lotta “eh” early, then the my turn, your turn stuff down the stretch. They’ve worked together so much that they know how to work the crowd when they finally picked the match up. Can’t say I give a shit about the Show stuff, and the false finish, then the DQ for the finish. The “conflict” of Punk’s decision making didn’t do much for me. Seriously… when it comes to various forms of entertainment, Pro Wrestling does this stuff in an mediocre way. It’s like Shawn’s “conflicted” over kicking Flair in the head being sold as something great. It’s cartoonish, and yes… Punk was cartoonish there. Setting that aside (i.e. the likely masturbatory praising of the Greatness of Punk’s Character/Acting/Existence that we’ll get from Punk Fans), the thing worked for me in the end for a simple reason: Punk hit Rock. Punk left Rock laid out in the ring. Rock’s going to want to kick Punk’s ass. Punk has indicated he’d be happy to take it to Rock. *That* is the conflict I want. Not some conflict within Punk on whether he’ll take advantage of Show coming down to the ring. Same goes for the heel turn. I actually don’t give a shit whether Punk turned or didn’t turn. I care that there’s an issue between Punk and Rock, and it’s a FIGHTING issue. On the show in general… The current guys don’t do it for me like the guys in the past. That always comes across when they do these things, or have some of the older guys back. I suspect that folks will toss that at me: I’m stuck in the past. Oddly enough, Pro Wrestling is one of the few things that’s the case of for me. Folks can see from the posts here that I follow a variety of sports as much as I did “back in the day”. TV? I watch a ton of current TV along with older stuff. Books? I read a mix of stuff published (i) in the past ten years to the present and (ii) booked that go back to the 30s through 80s, and enjoy both. So… it’s not a trait in me of thinking *everything* was better in the past and stuff now isn’t up to snuff. It’s just that I don’t care much for WWE TV, and haven’t for close to a decade. Shows like this only remind me of some of the “whys” for that. Austin… well, they did show a lot of stuff of him and of course put over Austin-McMahon. It sadly drew attention to him not being here. I would have far preferred the opening be a Big Vince & Austin Segment than Vince Intro leading into Unending DX-O-Rama. I get Austin wasn’t going to be there, and he explained in a statement today having the knee done earlier this month. His point on not wanting to be there on crutches is believable, and given that they couldn’t have done a true Austin-Vince moment here. But… you do miss it. The use of Cena was oddly subdued compared to other people getting big moments. His moment with Rock was short, backstage and pretty much a throwaway. He got the main event match, and it furthered Cena-Show. But the point coming out of the match was mostly focused on Punk and Rock. Can’t say I mind it, but he is the “anchor” of the show currently and for a while now, so you’d have thought they’d given him a moment on the mic in the ring… on a night when they gave Trip two big ones. This doesn’t get me into watching Raw anymore than I have in the past few years, i.e. periodically and painfully. But it does look like it will add the Rumble to the list of PPV’s that I’ll want to watch live next year in addition to Mania. Rock-Punk will be interesting. John

10/26/85 Bruno Sammartino/Paul Orndorff vs Roddy Piper/Bob Orton Jr. (7:28) Taped: The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA Aired: 10/26/85 PRISM Network http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....=9127⎧ I like this. It would be a great Nitro match. 06/14/86 Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs Tito Santana & Bruno Sammartino (9:42) Taped: Madison Square Garden, New York From: 06/14/86 MSG Network http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....1145⮉ But I digress. Looks like my complaints were that it was a total face domination and that the finish didn't put enough hate on the table to warrant the cage match follow up. My positives were that it was all action, the heels sold their asses off, the fans ate it up, and Bruno being in there made it something out of an ordinary match. That's a pretty decent "good for what it was" set of comments. 07/12/86 Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs Tito Santana & Bruno Sammartino (9:52) Taped: Madison Square Garden, New York From: 07/12/86 MSG Network http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....1147⮋ Yeah, I'm being complimentary there. I liked this, and thought it was a very fitting finish to the Tito-Savage feud given Tito wasn't getting the belt back. John