jdw

Does Dave know that he can wire his computer to his TV is he has the right TV and right computer? And that if he doesn't know how to do it, those Best Buy guys could come over and do it for him? John

Beats me. It's probably blamed on me somehow. Though I think I've been pretty clear that I prefer 12/96, which gets me in trouble with the folks who like 6/95 as GOAT... but what the heck. I've pimped 12/96 since... December of 1996. I do like calling it El Classico, but that's my homage to it being a Real Madrid vs Barcelona level match: great feud, and the pinnacle of it. In turn, El Super Classico for 6/95 is my joking homage to River Plate vs Boca Juniors trying to one up RM vs Barca in terms of a rivalry. In a sense, 6/95 is a one up on 6/94: two more guys, longer, more of the kitchen sink thrown in. The subversive fan in me long ago dragging futbol references into a wrestling discussions. There have been several pockets of fans here and there that have done polls and come up with it. Example: http://www.deathvalleydriver.com/Bestof90s/AJresults.html That was 2000. But if you ran the same poll on the Figure 4 Boards, you'd probably come up with something different... especially if Dave posted some thoughts. If you did it on CM, might get yet another set of results. That's the thing: there is no consensus. You are just running into those pockets where folks gone down that road. John

Oh lord... then it was an especially sick "tribute". Ugh. John

So the person doing the WON recap chose to ignore it: http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-sto...e-from-new-york Yow... talk about being clueless. John

It never did. That was the point I made several times over in the early part of the thread. There is no GOAT. There are lots of GOATS. Christ... baseball fans couldn't agree on Cobb vs Ruth for decades. Does any of us really think a bunch of idiot wrestling fans would ever agree on a GOAT? John

And I apologize to will for that post. Was reading through the thread from the point I last left off. John

No, it's not bullshit at all. Can you prove an opinion right, either? How? Every single form of proof offered so far basically boils down to something which is still judged in a subjective manner, somewhere down the line. I can dislike or disagree with someone's opinions, sure. Often and strongly. But the very definition of "opinion" means "not a fact". It's bullshit to reach for the meme. Just an utter cop out. Which was my point in the examples above. If your dad is of the opinion that blacks should be shipped to Africa and all non-Christians should be shot on the spot, then you and the rest of us would think his opinions on the matter are utter shite. Setting aside that it's no legal... just the holding of those "opinions" is utter batshit crazy nonsense. Sid > Bret is an utter batshit crazy nonsense "opinion". Pulling out the "It's an opinion and can't be wrong" meme doesn't keep it from being utter batshit crazy nonsense, just makes using the meme to defend the opinion little more than jerking off. John

Kobashi was really good week-in-week-out in '92 as well, and in '94 the TV cutback means we get less week-in-week-out content. '93 was a peak but I wouldn't call it dramatically better, let alone a 'one year peak'. The topic was "career year", which doesn't mean that the guy didn't have other great years. Just a matter of which was the highpoint of his career based on some such criteria. Of course his career year in terms of accomplishments would be something during his GHC run. In terms of "work" and "character", I found his work in those years uninteresting. Hence looking for another year. I find Kobashi in 1994 to start being a bit annoying at times. It was stronger in 1995, and after that he largely annoyed me even if he was still "great". That really isn't evident in 1993. In 1992 he was still stuck down being the #3 guy in his group. Sure, he was great in the role and great in the year. But it was also something he'd been doing for two and a half years and was a little thin. The push in 1993 was more interesting as well: 1992 Budokans 03/92 Baba & Andre & Dory vs Kawada & Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi 06/92 WTT: Tsuruta & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi 08/92 Kobashi & Kikuchi vs Fantastics 10/92 Williams & Spivey vs Patriot & Kobashi 12/92 Abdullah & Kimala II vs Kobashi & Kikuchi (non-league match) Other TV singles matches: Jumbo vs Kobashi, Kawada vs Kobashi (Carny), Hansen vs Kobashi (Carny), Kobashi vs Patriot, Hansen vs Kobashi Honors: All Asia Tag Title (4th time) Only one pushed Budokan match. The singles matches, other than the Patriot one, were Kobashi largely in the same spot he'd been in before: #3 on his own side, quite a ways off from beating Jumbo and Hansen, though spunky. The honor was cool to watch, but Kobashi won those back in 1990 (with Misawa and Ace) and in 1991 (again with Ace). It's not even the case of Kenta moving up to be the top guy on his team: he had been that teaming with Ace. 1993 Budokans 02/93 Kobashi vs Spivey 06/93 Kawada & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi 07/93 Hansen vs Kobashi 09/93 Kobashi vs Patriot 10/93 Kawada vs Kobashi 12/93 Kawada & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi Other TV singles matches: Taue vs Kobashi (#1 contenders), Kobashi vs Furnas (Carny), Misawa vs Kobashi (Carny), Kawada vs Kobashi (Carny), Gordy vs Kobashi, Williams vs Kobashi (#1 contenders), Kobashi vs Bossman Honors: World Tag Titles, RWTT Winner Really only one throwaway Budokan. Since Gordy was going to challenge Misawa, and Kawada & Taue would be tied up putting over Hansen & DiBiase, it looks like that might have been Williams-Kobashi on that card, which would be yet another big Budokan singles match for Kenta. Instead, they had the #1 contenders match earlier in the series and Kobashi got a lesser match here, though in a sense a bigger match with Doc earlier. Even the Spivey match here had meaning: Kobashi's first pin on one of the top four gaijin of the 1990-92 period. Over the course of the year, the singles matches are a big step up. Basically big singles matches against everyone got aired on TV. There's a lot of variety there as well. Obviously the big honors here in the RWTT and World Tag Titles. In comp, Kawada the tag titles for the first time just two years earlier in 1991. Misawa and Kawada each won the RWTT for the first time in 1992. Quite a big step up for Kobashi (not to mention pinning Kawada to win it). There is just more "there" to Kobashi's 1993. His work is better than in 1993. His push is more advanced. His character is stronger, but still well in focus rather than the confused one he'd get later in the decade. There are more matches, more variety of matches, more big matches, and even some nice small matches (Can-Ams vs Kobashi & Asako) that are fun counterpoints to the Big Matches that we all tend to get focused on. To me it's an easy career year for him. By Carny 1994 the cracks were starting to show. Still "great", but things like Kobashi-Akiyama relative to Kawada-Akiyama and Williams-Akiyama showed that he issues. John

Obviously they're getting money from Ion, so that's part of the driver. In addition, they're probably doing it on the cheap like Superstars and NXT are/were as opposed to big production like Raw and SmackDown. I also doubt they'll go the house show route as a way to keep costs down. It will likely be a few matches taped on the Raw and SD shows, then a good deal of recaps / replays of Raw angles and lead ins to SD. On the other hand... If the company has ideas for a new show, they really should be holding these off to populate the eventual WWE Network. You want to air "new" content. We've bounced around ideas in the past, but rolling Superstars and NXT into it are pretty obvious... so why bother with another show on yet another jobber network? I get it: cash. John

It's their "fall out of bed" match, with MPro's version of it generally replacing the All Japan Six-Man as the puroresu version where you're most likely to get a good match out of it. Some general thing they did on the first ECW PPV, which people here went nuts for by really was just their standard type of match. They had things like this on their Champ Forum show as well. Of course they have better matches, but if Raw or Nitro were kicking out matches like this in 1996-99 with gaijin in the place of the MPro guys, folks would be wetting the bed over it. We take "good" for granted sometimes. John

Kobashi 1993. He got pushed higher and harder after, and had other good years. But 1993 was where work, role and character came together best. The Yearbooks won't really capture it because it by nature has to cut down the amount of matches shown and you don't really get the sense of week-in-week out stuff, and what Kobashi is putting out in a roll-em-out *** or ***1/2 six man tag.

We seem to be arguing two things here. It's quite easy, and in fact perfectly reasonable, to think Shawn > Dandy if you don't like Lucha at all. While they're both "wrestlers", 90s WWF style and 90s Lucha as practiced by Shawn and Dandy are different beasts. All pro wrestling isn't the same, anymore than all sports isn't the same. The sporting equiv would be arguing with someone who hates soccer that the 1999 FA Cup Semifinal Replay was a classic football match. If they hate soccer, you might be able to get a "That Giggs goal was prett cool", but you'd also get from them lots of comments about how they were bored for most of the 120 minutes and they would much rather watch Game 4 of the 1987 NBA Finals. In the end, it's pointless to try to turn their thoughts on soccer: if it doesn't click, it doesn't click and move on. In turn, Bret-Sid are more direct comps. It's like arguing Game 4 of the 1987 NBA Finals with Game 7 of the 2010 Finals. The 2010 Game is one that looks great "on paper", a bit like Sid has that great body... but technically was a pretty awful game that just had a strong ending run. Look, I loved the result because I'm a Lakers Fan... but it was the worst game I've ever seen where I loved the result. About 2:30:00 of awful fingers on the chalkboard stuff. The 1987 Game is better, and if we broke it down like a Bret vs Sid argument, we'd have compelling reasons for it. If the other person in the discussion were a self acclaimed Basketball Hardcore and still clung to claiming that 2010 Game / Sid was better than 1987 Game / Bret, most people reading the thread would think that Sid Fan's opinions aren't of much value in judging basketball games. Now before we go to "It's an opinion and can't be wrong" meme, we all need to admit that's utter bullshit. All of us... every single one of us judges the opinions of others in life on a wide variety of topics and dismiss them as utter shite. Politics? Sports? Movies? Books? Musics? Food? The looks of Women / Men? Stuff your father said to you that you thought was shit? Really the only time we see the "It's an opinion and can't be wrong" meme is when someone doesn't agree with our opinions, or we simply don't like the other person and don't want to cop to the fact that they might be right. Bret-Sid? If someone wants to think Sid is a better worker than Bret, more power to them. But most of us would probably think the person's views on work aren't one we're going to seek out. Shawn-Dandy because the guy doesn't like Lucha? Well, that's hard for a Lucha Lover to take. I like Lucha, probably did before 95% of the posters here. I like Dandy. But I can read that and just get the fact the poster isn't a Lucha Fan, so I won't read him for opinions on Lucha... but his opinions on US vs US comps are ones I'll read to get a feel for. If I run across a Brett-Sid from him, then the US vs US comps aren't ones that have a lot of value for me. We all do this already anyway.

I think the thread has been clear on this: There was a strong LA promotion. There was a strong Bay Area promotion. CA was essentially split in half, and the two promoters made a good deal of money for themselves. In our wildest fantasies would it have been cool if they merged and there was one California Uber Alles promotion that than expanded outward in the West? Sure. But it also would have been cool if Florida and GA merged and expanded outward into Southern areas that weren't Memphis, JCP and Mid South (which really only leaves Bama, which had an NWA promotion). That's just not how things worked. The WWWF/WWF was a fluke. I think we've tried to get that across in various threads when talking about the base upon which Vince built. The AWA was something of a fluke, but even as "big" as it was relative to other NWA promotions, it didn't take MI or Ohio or Indiana despite those looking like logical places to expand. Why? Because those all were territories at various points while the AWA was getting off the ground and consolidating. I mean... the most obvious place to have long ago expanded was Indy because Verne had a working relationship with Bruiser, but it seems fairly obvious that for a good amount of time that Bruiser was making money off his own territory as well as working in Verne's. There seem to have been very few promoters with the vision to sell out. Perhaps that one reason that Tunney was smart in selling out to Vince: he got something rather than being steamrolled, and actually continued to make some money under Vince. Smart man for seeing the future. Not many did. John

We might agree in with the condition of "someone in Verne's position with a Vision". That very much was *not* Verne. If he took those *with* Hogan, but didn't make Hogan the Champ... then Vince would have ended up stealing Hogan anyway. He would have needed the vision to (i) push Hogan as the Anchor Champ, (ii) create a promotion that played towards Hogan, and (iii) had zero fear of pissing everyone off in the NWA and them coming after him. Vince basically called the bluff of that third point and kicked ass. Verne... probably had fear there that wasn't warranted. St Louis wasn't terribly important since it wasn't really a "territory": you're just getting one city, and not exactly Los Angeles. It was more symbolic for Vince. Verne going to war in St Louis would have been pointless: take over the open/dying territories would add far more people with less risk of any way. Again, it's the vision thing. He had the wrestler: Hogan. He had a great core to build off of, and the obvious areas to expand into that were close (MI, OH and Indy) that probably could have been done without setting off alarm bells in the NWA. It probably would have been worthwhile to simply buyout Bruiser if he was willing. Detroit... don't know how he would have gone about that since Sheik probably was suck an egofuck that he might not have sold. If the AWA had added those to his core in the late 70s when the business of each had to suck, then the firewall already existed. Then the expansion with Hogan could have focused on the West: using Denver as a base to go into Cali, the bigger cities of AZ, NM and NV. Real vision might have gone with a split promotion: Mid-Western circuit and Western Circuit. Don't mean that in the sense of two different world champs and tag champs, or a SmackDown and Raw. But a split crew, perhaps a 2+2 level of champs that could be split to anchor the different crews (WT/WTT + 2ndT/2ndTT) and can be mixed and match. To a degree, that's what Vince did... just not explicitly or as clear West/MidWest since he was hitting nearly the whole country. I don't think Verne could have pulled it off. And it would have taken someone pretty sharp and fearless. We do have to give it up to Vince: he was both. John

Three possibilities: * New York based territory * California based territory * Chicago based territory New York to a degree was lucky (or made its own luck) by pulling in the other major markets in the region: Boston, Philly, Baltimore/DC. New York alone was a major market, but when you made it NY+Philly+Boston, you're talking massive with Baltimore/DC as a bonus. It was also so much strength that it obvious your get cities like Providence that in size would be major in say the JCP territory. Chicago because it would allow you to do the same thing that NY did: as base to build outward to gobble up all of IL, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota. The AWA got some of that, but not all because Detroit had its own territory, Indy did, Ohio was it's own and messy. But if they could have pulled all off similar to how well Vince Sr. pulled all of the northeast into the WWWF, then this would have been a mighty territory. It's not like the AWA was a lightweight anyway. Of course California would be the other. Largest state in the country at the time and still growing, while NY is stagnant. There are three significant metros in CA (LA, Bay Area, San Diego) along with additional not-so-small cities outside those metros (Sacramento & Fresno)... and that's not even getting into Stockton, Riverside, San Bernardino, Bakersfield, etc. As we talked about earlier in the thread, a strong base to build from similar to NY: Arizona has several major cities, and several decent sized ones. Vegas isn't a bad town. Washington and Oregon aren't massive states, but there are some major cities and second tier ones. And pulling in Denver would add another major growing city. The problem as we mentioned was that the west coast had a trio of successful promotions: SoCal, NoCal and Owens in Portland. There was no incentive for them to get together in the 60s and 70s when they were all doing good business. By the time SoCal and NoCal hit the wall in the mid/late 70s, it was too late for them to get together. Perhaps is a visionary bought out NoCal before it was totally in the tank, and somehow got to the Labelles in SoCal as well, with the entire state they might have turned things around. Given how well the WWF eventually did in CA, that's possible. Then expand into AZ and NV. I don't think Owens ever would have sold out, so the question would be if you could put together WWF-style production and expansion to get into WA/OR and steal them. Dittos taking on the AWA in Denver. Really the place where a visionary would have done well was taking over for Verne while Hogan was still there, expanding into the open / semi-open areas in the Midwest to create a firewall (Ohio and Indy while consolidating IL & WI) against WWF expansion, being much more focused in adding California firmly before someone else got it. Also... get a major working deal with WGN as they and cable were expanding across the country. John

So who in the fuck is Mike Shannon and why should we care what he thinks? John

Flair's reigns weren't particularly good or drew well? Then one looks at Superstar's placement and that can't be it. Or Andre's 2-minute reign that didn't draw. Al: you've got us all confused. John

I mean... if it means their entire careers, then yeah... Flair being off the list (let alone not high on the list) doesn't make sense. Rogers being at #8 behind the guys who are #2 through #7 is kind of hard to figure out. Again, I'm not sure what the list means. Any list that has Eddy above Austin that isn't based 100% on work is odd. John

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=13612 D'oh! John

Jerome: I think this is the entire history of the 2/3 thingy. Looks like 10 of them... in the back of my head I remember coming across the Arn-Josh as being 2/3. As you're going through them, can you create a little History of WCWSN's 2/3 Experiment set of posts? Maybe later Loss can break it out of this thread for reference. 04/04/92: WCW TV Champion Steve Austin defeated Tom Zenk in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match 04/11/92: WCW US Tag Team Champions Greg Valentine & Terrance Taylor defeated Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-1, at around the 19-minute mark; fall #1: Valentine pinned Hayes at 4:05; fall #2: Garvin pinned Valentine at around the 10-minute mark; fall #3: Taylor pinned Garvin 04/18/92: Nikita Koloff defeated Larry Zbyszko (w/ Madusa) in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-0; fall #1: Koloff pinned Zbyszko at 14:32; fall #2: Koloff pinned Zbyszko at 11:02 04/25/92: Barry Windham fought WCW TV Champion Steve Austin (w/ Paul E. Dangerously) to a draw in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match; fall #1: Windham pinned Austin at 4:13; fall #2: the time limit expired at 5:39 as Windham had Austin covered following a suplex 05/02/92: Arn Anderson pinned Big Josh with a spinebuster (?) 05/09/92: Barry Windham defeated WCW TV Champion Steve Austin (w/ Paul E. Dangerously) to win the title in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match; fall #1: Windham pinned Austin at 10:57; fall #2: Austin pinned Windham at 4:57; fall #3: Windham pinned Austin at 5:40 05/16/92: Scotty Flamingo defeated Johnny B. Badd in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-1 05/23/92: Rick Steamboat & Nikita Koloff & Dustin Rhodes defeated Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton & & Larry Zbyszko at around the 23-minute mark in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-1; fall #1: Steamboat pinned Zbyszko; fall #2: Rhodes was disqualified; fall #3: Koloff pinned Anderson 05/30/92: The Great Muta defeated Brad Armstrong in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-0; fall #1: Muta pinned Armstrong at 21:45; fall #2: Muta pinned Armstrong at 6:09 06/06/92: WCW TV Champion Barry Windham defeated Arn Anderson in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match

Not really sure what your ranking. In terms of overall value / importance over the period they held the belt (i.e. 1/84 - 12/91 for Hogan), I would rate them as: 1. Hogan 2. Bruno 3. Austin 4. Rock 5. Backlund Then there's everyone else who was a positive (like Savage), then everyone else who was passable (say Eddy), then everyone else who didn't really matter (say Iron Sheik), then everyone else who was a negative (say Warrior who bombed). Beats the shit out of me where Trip would fit in since he covers a few of those. John

My thought would be that if you pop in one of the two famous Dump vs Chiggy matches, you'll find that are a succcesion of sequences. Within a sequence, you may have a succcesion of moves. Then you'll have a transition to another sequence, which could be complete at odds with the prior sequence and quite possibly the transition not really being a succcesion of moves that naturally follow the prior succcesion of moves... but just something to get to the next sequence. Not being snarky there. Totally serious. Sometimes a director thinks through everything they do, and everything on the screen fits perfectly into the bigger storyline. Sometimes a director just has an actress show her tits regardless of whether it has anything to do with the storyline because she's hot, and movie goers might like some tit even if it doesn't make a damn bit of sense for the character to be doing it. We don't really know which of those directors Chiggy is. She probably thinks of herself as the first. But even those of us with limited connections with people inside have run across guys who think they're the first, what they say makes some sense, but really... when you think about it... they're the second. "You see... it was a No DQ Match." -Carlos Espada John

Not even close.

The bitchfest over "control segment" with the special cameo run in by "the body of the match" is hilarious. Add me to the list of people who only slightly give a hit what people in the business call stuff. If it's useful, it's worth using. But we also need to remember that these are the jerkoffs who call fans who put food on their table, clothes on their back and drugs in their system "marks". So... fuck what they call stuff if it isn't useful. "Shine" is a hot lingo now thanks shoot tapes and other ways guys in the business are talking with those outside it. But the reality is that a lot of us fans have been talking about work for 20+ years with our own words to describe what we mean... some of us longer than some of jerkoffs have been in the business or going to wrestling schools. Plenty of folks have communicated well without dropping a "shine" out as if it's a part of swinging our smart cocks around. Do we need to go back through the old DVDVR's to see how often Dean used "shine", or sift through CRZ's recaps for it being used in the proper fashion? Are we going to stomp up and down because they didn't? If I call the patt of 06/03/94 where Misawa works over Kawada's knee "control" rather than "shine", and where Kawada is working over Misawa's jucing ear "control" rather than "heat"... you know what I'm talking about. I've been rambling about that match and 06/09/95 and 12/06/96 online for 16 years, and it would appear that I've communicated well enough without "shine" and other such insiderism that jdw-think about those matches grew up all over the place like fucking weeds that a lot of people by now would like to use a metric ton of Ortho on to kill off. In turn, Phil-thoughts on Fujiwara are probably just as much out there all over the place, and did he need to use Shine... or did he have his own way of decribing what he thought the genius of Fujiwara was up to in the ring. If Phil is a good enough writer, if what he writes is clear enough to us to match what we're seeing and what we're thinking about the match, then it's effective. Seriously guys... bug out of the ass. John

Looks like Will took the tv version of the match which was JIP and spliced from the fan cam the part the was missing from tv. Very cool... totally awesome, Will! Of their circulating 8 (of 9) matches, this has been the least talked about / famous, and probably isn't going to change. But presenting it in a fresh, complete form... awesome. Now we can only hope the 1995 tag league (as opposed to Final) match turns up on fan cam at some point. Might have to mention it to Dan to ask about in some of his trading friends in Japan. Getting all nine of them would be something of a holy grail, even if the last one is only in fan cam version. John